MUSIC  AND  LIFE 

A  STUDY   OF  THE   RELATIONS 

BETWEEN   OURSELVES   AND 

MUSIC 

BY 
THOMAS  WHITNEY  SURETTE 

AUTHOR  OF 
"  The  Development  of  Symphonic  Music  '* 

AND  (WITH  D.  G.  MASON)  OF 

"  The  Appreciation  of  Music" 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Cbc  Fiifccrstbc  press  Cambridge 
1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY  TH»  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY  THOMAS  WHITNEY  SURETTE 

ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  March  IQIJ 


MUSIC 
LIBRARY 


60 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The  author  desires  to  express  his  thanks  to  the 
Editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  permission  to 
use,  as  a  part  of  this  book,  material  from  a  series  of 
articles  that  appeared  in  his  magazine. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER    I 

WHAT  IS  MUSIC? 

I.  DISTINCTION   BETWEEN    Music   AND  THE  OTHER 

ARTS   .       ...      .      .       .       .       .       .  -     i 

II.  THE  ELEMENTS  OF  Music          .....       6 

HI.  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  Music    .....     13 

IV.  "  BEAUTY  is  TRUTH,  TRUTH  BEAUTY  "       .       .18 

CHAPTER    II 

MUSIC  FOR  CHILDREN 

I.  TRAINING  THE  SENSE  FOR  BEAUTY   ....  26 

II.  THE  VALUE  OF  SINGING      ...'...  36 

HI.  CURRENT  METHODS  OF  TEACHING    ....  41 

IV.  WHAT  SHOULD  CHILDREN  SING  ?      .       .       .       .45 

V.  THE  FALLACY  OF  THE  INEVITABLE  PIANOFORTE 

LESSON       .......       ,      .  50 

VI.  THE  REAL  GOAL         .......  56 

[vii]' 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  III 

PUBLIC  SCHOOL  MUSIC 

I.  IDEALS  OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  EDUCATION    .       .       .61 

II.  THE  VALUE  OF  Music  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  EDUCA- 

TION      68 

III.  FALSE  METHODS  OF  TEACHING         ...  74 

IV.  GOOD  OR  BAD  Music         .       .       .       .       .       .83 

V.  ATTEMPTS  AT  REFORM      .       .-•     .       .       .       .91 

VI.  OTHER  ACTIVITIES  IN  SCHOOL  Music     ...     97 

CHAPTER    IV 

COMMUNITY  MUSIC 

I.   Music  BY  PROXY 103 

II.   OUR  MUSICAL  ACTIVITIES 108 

III.  WHAT  WE  MIGHT  DO 117 

IV.  AN  EXPERIMENT 119 

V.  Music  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE         .       .       .       .       .  1 34 

CHAPTER    V 

THE  OPERA 

I.  WHAT  is  OPERA?        .       .       .       .       .       .       .   145 

II.  OPERA  IN  THE  OLD  STYLE 149 

III.  WAGNER  AND  AFTER  158 

IV.  WHEN  Music  AND  DRAMA  ARE  FITLY  JOINED        .   166 
V.  OPERA  AS  A  HUMAN  INSTITUTION    .       .       .       .175 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  vj 

THE  SYMPHONY 
I.  WHAT  is  A  SYMPHONY  ? 179 

II.    HOW  SHALL  WE  UNDERSTAND  IT  ?         .          .          .          .187 

III.  THE  MATERIALS  OF  THE  SYMPHONY       .       .       .196 

IV.  TONE  COLOR  AND  DESIGN 210 

CHAPTER    VII 

THE  SYMPHONY  (Continued} 

I.  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  SYMPHONY       ....  216 
II.  STAGES  OF  ITS  DEVELOPMENT 226 

III.  CHAMBER  Music  AS  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SYM- 

PHONIES       234 

IV.  THE  PERFORMER  AND  THE  PUBLIC  ....  237 

CHAPTER    VIII 

• 

CONCLUSION 241 


INTRODUCTION 

DURING  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years  there 
has  been  an  enormous  increase  in  the  United 
States  of  what  may  be  called  "  institutional" 
music.  We  have  built  opera  houses.,  we  have 
formed  many  new  orchestras,  and  we  have  es- 
tablished the  teaching  of  music  in  nearly  all 
our  public  and  private  schools  and  colleges,  so 
that  a  casual  person  observing  all  this,  hearing 
from  boastful  lips  how  many  millions  per  an- 
num we  spend  on  music,  and  adding  up  the 
various  columns  into  one  grand  total,  might 
arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  we  are  really  a 
musical  people. 

But  one  who  looks  beneath  the  surface  — 
who  reflects  that  the  thing  we  believe,  and  the 
thing  we  love,  that  we  do — would  have  to  do 
a  sum  in  subtraction  also ;  would  have  to  ask 
jwhat  music  there  is  in  our  ownhouseHoIds. 
He  would  find  that  in  our  cities  and  towns 
only  an  infinitesimal  percentage  of  the  inhabit- 
ants sing  together  for  the  pleasure  of  doing 

y         *•*  i        ••      ~*"    "  *         — ^  " 

so,  and  thal_the_task  of  keeping  choral  societies 
[xi] 


INTRODUCTION 

together  is  as  difficult  as  everj^tfajatjlie__rnusic 
we  take  no  part  in/but  merely  listen  to,  is  the 
Inusicthatflourishes ;  that  our  operatic  singers, 
the  most  highly  paid  in  the  world,  come  to  us 
annually  from  abroad  and  sing  to  us  in  lan- 
guages that  we  cannot  understand ;  that,  in 
short?  while  music  flourishes,  much  of  it  is 

hrmghf  an(j  |ittle  of  it  is  hnme.-maHp.  The  de- 
duction is  obvious.  This  institutional  music  is 
a  sort  of  largess  of  our  prosperity.  We  are 
rich  enough  to  buy  the  best  the  woricTaffords. 
We  institute  music  in  our  public  schools  and 
display  our  interest  in  it  once  a  year  —  at 
graduation  time.  We  see  that  our  children 
take  "  music  lessons "  and  judge  the  result 
likewise  by  their  capacity  to  play  us  occasion- 
ally a  very  nice  little  piece^Men,  in  particular, 
—  all  potential  singers,  and  very  much  needing 
to  singy — look  upon  it  as  a  slightly  effeminate 
or  scarcely  natural  and  manly  thing  to  doT 
Music  is,  in  short,  too  much  our  diversion, 
and  too  little  our  salvation. 

And  to  form  a  correct  estimate  of  the  value 

of  our  musical  activities  we  should  need  also 

to  consider  the  quality  of  the  music  we  hear ; 

and  this,  in  relation  to  the  sums  we  have  been 

[xii] 


INTRODUCTION 

doing,  might  make  complete  havoc  of  our  fig- 
ures, because  it  would  change  their  basic  sig- 
nificance. For  if  it  is  bad  music,  the  more  we 
hear  of  it  the  worse  off  we  are.  If  a  city  spends 
thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year  cm  bad  public- 
school  music,  it  is  a  loser  to  the  extent  of  some 
sixty  thousand  dollars.  If  your  child  is  pain- 
fully acquiring  a  mechanical  dexterity  (or  ac- 
quiring a  painful  mechanical  dexterity)  in  piano- 
forte playing  and  is  learning  almost  nothing 
about  music,  you  lose  twice  what  you  pay  and 
your  child  pays  twice  for  her  suffering.  What 
is  called  "  being  musical  "  cannot  be  passed  on 
to  some  one  else  or  to  something  else ;  you 
cannot  be  musical  vicariously  —  through  an- 
other person,  through  so  many  thousand  dol- 
lars, through  civic  pride,  through  any  other 
of  the  many  means  we  employ.  Being  musical 
d oes  not  necessarily  lie  in  performing  music.; 
it  i_s_rather  a  state  of  being  which  every  indi- 
vidual  who  can  hear  is  entitled  by  nature  to 
attain  to  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 

Such  are  the  musical  conditions  confronting 
us,  and  such  are  the  ^possibilities  open  to  us. 

purpose   IS,  therefore,  tn  anggpsf  ways  flf 

improvingjjiis  situation,  and  of  realizing  these 
[  xiii  ] 


possibilities;  and,  as  a  necessary  basis  for  any 
such  suggestions,  to  consider  first  the  nature 
of  music  itself.  Is  it  merely  a  titillation  of  the 
ear?  Are  Mozart,  Beethoven,  and  Schubert 
merely  purveyors  of  sweetmeats  ?  Does  music 
consist  in  an  astonishing  dexterity  in  perform- 
ance ?  Is  it,  as  Whitman  says,  "  what  awakes 
in  you  when  you  are  reminded  by  the  instru- 
ments "  ?  Or  has  it  a  life  of  its  own,  self-con- 
tained, self-expressive,  and  complete  ?  These 
questions  need  to  be  asked  —  and  answered  — 
before  we  can  formulate  any  method  of  im- 
proving our  musical  situation. 

They  are  not  asked.  We  blindly  follow  con- 
ventional practices ;  we  make  little  effort  to 
fathom  the  many  delightful  problems  which 
every  hearing  of  music  presents  to  us ;  we 
submit  to  being  baffled  every  time  we  hear  an 
orchestra  play ;  we  take  no  forward  step  on 
the  road  to  understanding.  Beethoven  was  a 
heart,  a  mind,  a  will,  and  an  imagination  ;  we, 
in  listening,  absorb  his  emotion  and  hardly 
anything  else.  His  grotesque  outbursts  make 
us  uncomfortable,  as  would  a  solecism  of  be- 
havior. His  strange,  bizarre,  uncouth,  and  ex- 
traordinary themes,  every  one  of  which  fits 

xiv 


INTRODUCTION 

perfectly  into  his  plan,  leave  us  wondering 
what  he  intends.  His  sentiment,  which  is  al- 
ways relative  to  his  humor  or  his  roughness, 
we  understand  only  by  itself 

Our  children,  after  years  of  conventional 
music  study,  are  finally  taken  to  hear  an  or- 
chestral concert.  A  great  man  is  to  speak  to 
them.  He  does  not  use  words.  What  he  has 
to  say  issues  forth  in  a  myriad  of  sounds,  now 
soft,  now  loud,  now  fast,  now  slow.  This  that 
the  child  hears  is  what  is  called  music,  seem- 
ingly a  mere  succession  of  sounds,  really  a 
vision  of  what  a  great  man  has  seen  of  all  those 
inner  things  of  life  which  only  he  can  truly 
see.  These  sounds  are  formed  into  a  perfect 
order.  Their  very  soul  may  hide  in  the  pe- 
culiar tone  of  the  oboe  or  horn ;  they  change 
their  significance  a  dozen  times  in  as  many  mo- 
ments ;  slender  filaments  of  them  run  through 
and  through  as  in  a  fairy  web.  The  child  gapes. 
"  Is  this  music  ?  "  it  says  ;  "  I  thought  music 
was  the  black  and  white  keys,  or  holding  my 
hand  right,  or  scales,  or  the  key  of  F  or  G,  or 
sonatinas,  or  something."  No  one  has  ever 
told  her  what  music  really  is.  She  has  only  hef 
delicate,  tender,  childlike  feelings  as  a  guide 

[XV    ] 


INTRODUCTION 

What  she  has  been  doing  may  have  been  as 
little  like  music  as  grammar  is  like  literature. 

Both  the  child  and  the  adult  must  be  brought 
into  contact  with  music  ;  with  rhythmic  move- 
ment in  all  its  delightful  diversity ;  with  great 
musical  themes  and  the  uses  to  which  they 
are  put  by  composers ;  with  musical  forms  by 
means  of  which  pieces  of  music  are  made  co- 
herent; with  harmonies  in  their  primary  states, 
or  blended  into  a  thousand  hues.  They  must 
learn  to  listen,  so  that,  as  the  music  unfolds, 
there  takes  place  within  them  an  unfolding 
which  is  the  exact  answer  to  the  processes  go- 
ing on  in  the  music.  All  this  cannot  be  brought 
about  save  by  intention. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  t^"g  Kr»r>V ,  th^nj  to  \(**<\ 
the  reader  by  what  capacity  he  possesses  to 
such  an  understanding  ot  the  art  of  music  as 
shall  make  every  part  of  it  intelligible  to  him. 
And  since  some  readers  may  have  little  knowl- 
edge of  music,  this  book  also  attempts  to  set 
forth  the  common  grounds  upon  which  all  art 
rests,  and  to  tempt  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  other  arts  to  become  inquisitive  about 
music.  Curiosity  is  a  necessary  element  in  hu- 
man intelligence. 


MUSIC  AND    LIFE 


MUSIC   AND  LIFE 

CHAPTER  I 
WHAT  IS  MUSIC? 

I.    DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  MUSIC  AND  THE 
OTHER    ARTS 

ANY  discussion  of  the  art  of  music,  —  of  its 
significance  in  relation  to  ourselves,  of  its  aes- 
thetic qualities,  or  of  methods  of  teaching  it, 
—  to  be  comprehensive,  must  be  based  on  a 
clear  recognition  of  the  one  important  quality 
which  is  inherent  in  it,  which  distinguishes  it 
IronT  the  other  arts  and  which  gives  it 'Its  pe- 
culiar power.  Painting  and  sculpture  are  defin- 
itive. It  is  not  possible  to  create  a  great  work 
in  either  of  these  mediums  without  a  subject 
taken  from  life;  for,  however  imaginative  the 
work  may  be,  it  must  depict  something.  In 
painting,  for  example,  the  very  soul  of  a~reli- 
gious  belief  may  shine  from  the  canvas,  —  as 
in  the  Sistine  Madonna,  —  but  that  belief  can- 
not be  there  presented  without  physical  em- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

bodiment.  And  when  the  physical  embodiment 
is  reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  as  in  some  of 
Manet's  paintings,  there  is  still  the  necessity 
of  portrayal ;  Manet's  wonderful  light  and  opal- 
escent color  must  fall  on  an  object.  Turner 
paints  a  mystical  landscape,  a  mythological 
vale,  such  as  haunts  the  dreams  of  poets,  but 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  produce  the  illusion 
by  itself;  the  vale  is  a  vale,  human  beings  are 
there.  Sculpture,  which  makes  its  effects  by 
the  perfection  of  its  rhythms  around  an  axis, 
and  by  its  shadows,  —  effects  of  the  most  sub- 
tle and,  at  the  same  time,  of  the  most  elemen- 
tal kind,  —  it,  too,  must  portray;  the  emotion 
must  take  form  and  substance,  and  that  form 
must  be  drawn  from  the  outward,  visible 
world. 

In  poetry  the  same  limitations  exist.  It,  too, 
must  deal  in  human  life  with  a  certain  defi- 
niteness.  But  the  greatest  poetry  is  continu- 
ally struggling  to  slough  off  the  garment  of 
reality  and  free  the  soul  from  its  trammels. 
It  trembles  on  the  verge  of  music,  seeking  to 
find  words  for  what  cannot  be  said,  and  attain- 
ing a  great  part  of  its  meaning  by  a  sublime 
euphony.  The  didactic  is  its  grave. 

[a] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

Before  I  attempt  to  describe  the  peculiar 
quality  which  distinguishes  music,  it  will  be 
well  to  state_quite  clearly  what  it  cannot  do. 
This  can  best  be  understood  by  a  comparison 
between  it  and  poetry,  which  of  all  the  arts  is 
'nearest  to  music,  because  it  exists  in  the  ele- 
ment of  time,  whereas  painting  and  sculpture 
exist  in  space.  Poetry  is  made  up  of  words 
arranged  in  meaning  and  euphony.  Each  of 
these  words  signifies  an  object,  idea,  or  feeling; 
the  word  "  chair,"  for  example,  has  come  to 
mean  an  object  to  sit  upon.  Now,  while  notes  in 
music  are  given  certain  alphabetical  names  in- 
dicating a  pitch  determined  by  sound  waves, 
the  use  of  these  letters  is  arbitrary  and  has  no 
connection  with  their  original  hieroglyphic  and 
Hieratic  significance.  The  musical  sound  we 
call  a,  for  example,  means  nothing  as  a  sound, 
has  no  common  or  agreed-upon  or  archaeolog- 
ical significance.  Combine  the  note  a  with  c 
and  e  in  what  is  known  as  the  common  chord 
and  you  still  have  no  meaning;  combine  a 
with  other  notes  and  form  a  melody  from 
them,  and  you  have  perhaps  beauty  and  co- 
herence of  form,  —  a  pleasing  sequence  of 
sounds,  —  but  still  no  meaning  such  as  you 

[3  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

get  from  the  combination  of  letters  in  a  word 
like  "  chair."  Combine  a  with  a  great  many 
other  notes  into  a  symphony,  and  this  coher- 
ence and  beauty  may  become  quite  wonderful 
in  effect,  but  it  still  remains  untranslatable 
into  other  terms,  and  without  such  definite 
significance  as  is  attained  by  combining  words 
in  poems.  So  we  say  that  notes  have  no  sig- 
nificance in  themselves  i  that  musical  phrases 
have  no  meaning  as  have  phrases  in  language; 
that  melodies  are  not  sentences,  and  sympho- 
nies not  poems. 

If  we  compare  music  with  painting  or  sculp- 
ture we  find  much  the  same  contrast.  Just  as 
music  does  not  mean  anything  in  the  sense 
that  words  do,  so  it  has  nr>  "<^Kjprf"  }n  the 
sense  that  Turner's  The  Fighting  Temeraire 
has,  or  Donatello's  David.  It  does  not  deal 
with  objects.  It  cannot  portray  a  ship  or  a  star. 
It  may  seem  to  float,  it  may  flash  for  a  mo- 
ment, but  it  does  not  describe  or  set  forth. 
Furthermore,  it  cannot,  strictly  speaking,  give 
expression  to  ideas.  It  may  be  so  serious,  so 
ordered,  so  equable  —  as  in  Bach  —  that  we 
say  its  composer  was  a  philosopher,  but  no 
item  of  his  philosophy  appears.  Above  all  it 

[4] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

is   unmoral,1   and   without   belief  or   dogma. 

---    *     --  _  -------  o 

Too  much  stress  can  hardly  be_laid  on  this 
negative  quality  in  music,  for  it  is  in  this  very 
disability  that  its  greatest  virtue  lies.  I  shall 
refer  later  to  the  frequent  tendency  among 
listeners  to  avoid  facing  this  problem  by  at- 
taching meanings  of  their  own  to  the  music 
they  hear.  I  need  only  note  in  passing  that 
these  so-called  "  meanings  "  seldom  agree,  and 
that  the  habit  is  the  result  either  of  ignorance 
of  the  true  office  of  music,  or  of  mental  lassi- 
tude toward  it.  "It  is  not  enough  to  enjoy 
yourself  over  a  work  of  art,"  says  Joubert; 
"you  must  enjoy  it." 

Now  the  one  distinguishing  quality  of  mu- 
sic is  this:  it  finds  its  perfection  in  itself  with- 
out relation  to  other  objects.  It  is  what  it  is  in 
itself  alone.  It  is  non-definitive  ;  i 


use  -symbols  of  something  else:  it  cannot  be 
translated  into  other  terms.  The  poet  seeks 
always  a  complete  union  of  the  thing  said  and 
the  method  of  saying  it.  Flaubert  seeks  pa- 
tiently and  persistently  for  the  one  word  which 
shall  not  only  be  the  exact  symbol  of  his 

'  It  may,  of  course,  be  used  with  words  of  definite  moan- 
ing; but  we  are  speaking  of  pure  music. 

[5] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

thought,  but  which  shall  fit  his  euphony.  The 
painter  so  draws  his  objects,  so  distributes  his 
colors,  and  so  arranges  his  composition  as  to 
make  of  them  plastic  mediums  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  thought,  and  the  greatness  of  his 
picture  depends  first  of  all  and  inevitably  on 
his  power  of  fusing  his  subjects  with  his  tech- 
nique. In  sculpture  precisely  the  same  process 
takes  place.  Neither  of  these  arts  actually  copies 
nature ;  each  "arranges"  it  for  its  own  purpose. 
In  music  this  much-sought  union  of  matter 
and  manner  is  complete;  the  thing  said  and 
the  method  of  saying  it  are  one  and  indivisi- 
ble. It  is,  as  Pater  says,  "  the  ideal  of  all  art 
whatever,  precisely  because  in  music  it  is  im- 
possible to  distinguish  the  form  from  the  sub- 
stance or  matter,  the  subject  from  the  expres- 
sion." 

II.    THE  ELEMENTS  OF  MUSIC 

The  primal  element-  in  m.usic  is  vibration. 
Sound-waves  in  some  ordered  sequence  —  si- 
lent till  they  strike  our  ears  —  are  formed  by 
our  ingenuity  and  sense  of  order  into  patterns 
of  beauty.  They  exist  in  time,  not  in  space. 
They  are  motion..  And  these  vibrations  are 

[6] 


WHAT   is  Music  ? 

the  very  substance  of  all  life;  of  stars  in  their 
courses,  of  the  pulse-beats  of  the  heart,  of  the 
mysterious  communications  from  the  nerves 
to  the  brain,  of  light,  of  heat,  of  color.  The 
plastic  arts  are  static.  Painting  has  the  power 

"  to  give 

To  one  blest  moment  snatched  from  fleeting  time 
The  appropriate  calm  of  blest  eternity. " 

Sculpture  is  motion  caught  in  a  moment  of 
perfection.  .Music  is  motion  always  in  perfec- 
tion. This  rhythm  exists  also  in  literature  and 
the  other  arts.  Poe  would  be  nothing  without 
it;  Whitman  uses  it  in  long  swelling  undula- 
tions which  are  sometimes  almost  indistin- 
guishable; the  composition  in  a  great  painting 
is  a  rhythm;  the  Apollo  Belvedere  is  all  rhythm. 
But  in  music  rhythm  is  a  physical,  moving 
property;  rhythm  in  being,  not  rhythm  caught 
in  a  poise.  The  possibilities  of  rhythmic  play 
in  music  far  exceed  those  in  poetry,  for  in  the 
latter  the  sense  or  meaning  would  be  clouded 
by  too  much  rhythmic  complication.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  do  in  poetry,  for  example, 
what  Beethoven  does  at  the  beginning  of  a 
movement  in  one  of  his  string  quartettes,1 

1  The  Scherzo  of  Opus  59,  no.  i. 

[7] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

where  the  'cello,  entirely  alone,  repeats  one 
note  fifteen  times  in  two  rhythmic  groups; 
there  is  no  melody  and  no  harmony  —  merely 
one  reiterated  rhythmic  sound.  It  is  also  im- 
possible for  poetry  to  present  three  or  four 
different  rhythms  simultaneously,  as  music 
often  does  ;  nor  can  poetic  rhythms  carry  across 
a  complete  rhythmic  disruption  whose  whole 
aesthetic  sense  lies  in  its  relations  to  a  perma- 
nent rhythm  which  it  momentarily  violates, 
as  is  the  case  in  the  first  movement  of  Beetho- 
ven's Third  Symphony.  In  short,  rhythm  in 
music  has  a  diversity,  a  flexibility,  and  a  phys- 
icar^vipor  quite  unparalleled  in  any  other 
art. 

"""Rlelody  in  music  consists  in  a  sequence  of 
single  sounds  curved  to  some  line  of  beauty. 
Whereas  rhythm  is  conceivable  without  any 
intellectual  quality,  —  as  a  purely  physical 
manifestation,  —  melody  implies  some  sense 
of  design,  since  it  progresses  from  one  point 
in  time  to  another,  and  without  design  would 
be  merely  a  series  of  incoherent  sounds.  In 
this  design  rhythm  plays  a  leading  part,  and 
the  themes  having  the  most  perfect  balance  of 
rhythms  are  the  most  interesting.  Examples 

[  8] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

of  diverse  but  highly  coordinated  melodies 
may  be  found  in  the  slow  movement  of  Bee- 
thoven's pianoforte  sonata,  Opus  13,  and  in 
Brahms's  pianoforte  quartette,  Opus  60,  the 
synthetic  quality  of  which  is  like  that  of  a 
finely  constructed  sentence.  Melody,  being 
design,  giygs-conscious  evidence  of  the  per- 
sonality  of  its  creator.  Schubert,  for  example, 
is  like  Keats  and  represents  the  type  of  pure 
lyric  utterance.  Bach,  on  the  contrary,  is  es- 
sentially a  thinker,  and  his  melodies  are  full 
of  vigorous  and  diversified  rhythms. 

Folk-song  was  the  beginning  of  what  we 
call  "  melody,"  and  the  best  specimens  of  folk- 
songs are  quite  as  perfect  within  their  small 
range  as  are  the  greatest  works  of  the  masters. 
Their  contour  and  rhythm  are  sometimes  as 
delicately  balanced  as  the  mechanism  of  a  fine 
instrument.  And  when  we  remember  that  these 
melodies  were  the  spontaneous  utterance  of 
simple,  untutored  peoples  who,  in  forming 
them,  depended  almost  entirely  on  instinct, 
we  realize  how  intimate  a  medium  music  is  for 
the  expression  of  feeling.  People  who  could 
neither  read  nor  write  and  who  had  little  knowl- 
edge or  experience  of  artistic  objects  could, 

[9] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

nevertheless,  create  perfect  works  of  beauty 
in  the  medium  of  sound. 

Harmony  is  an  adjunct  to  the  other  two 
elements.  It  is  in  music  something  of  what 
color  is  in  painting.  As  contrasted  with  the 
long  line  of  melody  and  the  regular  impulses 
in  time  of  rhythm,  harmony  Heals  in  masses. 
Melody  carries  the  mind  from  one  point  to 
another;  harmony  strikes  simultaneously  and 
produces  an  immediate  sensation.  Its  effect 
upon  us  is  probably  due  to  a  subtle  physical 
correspondence  within  ourselves  to  combina- 
tions of  sounds  that  spring  direct  from  nature. 
The  whole  history  of  music  shows  a  gradual 
assimilation  by  human  beings  of  new  combi- 
nations of  sounds,  and  it  is  probable  that  only 
the  first  chapters  of  that  history  have  been 
written. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  synthetic  quality  of 
melody,  and  it  is  obvious  that  the  larger  the 
scope  of  music  the  more  important  this  quality 
becomes.  When  a  composer  creates  a  sonata 
or  symphony  he  must  so  dispose  all  his  ma- 
terial—  rhythms,  melodies,  and  harmonies  — 
as  to  give  to  the  work  perfect  coherence.  A 
work  of  art  expressed  in  the  element  of  time 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

needs  this  synthesis  more  than  one  expressed 
in  space.  For  although  there  is  in  music  no 
"  subject,"  yet  beauty  is  being  unfolded  and 
the  need  of  a  cumulative  and  coordinated  ex- 
pression of  it  is  quite  as  great  as  it  would  be 
were  the  music  "  about "  something.  There 
are  various  ways  of  arranging  musical  material 
so  as  to  attain  this  end.  The  chief  principle 
of  its  synthesis  is  derived  from  the  volatile 
nature  of  sound  itself.  It  is  this:  that  no  one 
series  of  sounds  formed  into  a  melody  can 
long  survive  the  substitution  of  other  series, 
unless  there  be  given  some  restatement,  or  at 
least  some  reminder,  of  the  first.  The  result 
of  this  is  that  in  the  early  music  there  was  an 
alternation  of  one  phrase  or  one  tune  with  an- 
other; and  this  in  turn  was  followed  by  all 
sorts  of  experiments  tending  to  bring  about 
variety  in  unity.  (These  simple  forms  some- 
what resemble  what  is  known  in  poetry  as  the 
triolet.)  The  most  common  form  in  music  is 
threefold.  It  is  found  in  folk-songs,  marches, 
minuets,  nocturnes,  and  so  forth,  and  —  ex- 
panded to  huge  proportions  —  in  symphonic 
movements.  In  folk-songs  this  form  consists 
in  repeating  a  first  phrase  after  a  second  con- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

trasting  one.  In  minuets,  nocturnes,  romances, 
and  the  like,  each  part  is  a  complete  melody 
in  itself.  In  a  symphonic  movement  the  first 
part  —  save  in  such  notable  exceptions  as  the 
first  movement  of  the  "  Eroica"  of  Beethoven 
—  contains  all  the  thematic  material,  the  sec- 
ond contains  what  is  called  the  "  development" 
of  the  material  stated  in  the  first,  and  the  third 
part  restates  the  first  with  such  changes  as  shall 
give  it  new  significance. 

It  is  in  this  synthetic  quality  that  much  of 
the  greatness  of  symphonic  music  lies.  No 
other  quality,  however  fine  in  itself,  can  take 
its  place.  Schumann,  for  example,  created  in- 
teresting and  beautiful  themes  in  profusion, 
but  his  compositions  in  the  larger  forms  lack 
a  complete  synthesis.  Bach  was  the  greatest 
master  in  this  respect.  So  perfect  is  the  order- 
ing of  his  material  that  it  gives  that  impres- 
sion of  inevitability  which  distinguishes  all 
great  art  everywhere.  It  is  obvious  enough 
that  parallels  to  this  form  will  be  found  in  lit- 
erature, for  it  is  a  part  of  life  and  nature.  It  is 
youth,  manhood,  and  old  age ;  it  is  sunrise, 
noon,  and  sunset;  it  is  spring,  summer,  and 
winter.  So  it  must  be ;  for  art  is  only  life  in 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

terms  of  beauty,  and  human  life  is  only  nature 
expressing  itself  in  terms  of  man  and  woman. 
This  then  is  the  thing  we  call  music:  rhythm,    , 
melody,  and  harmony  arranged  into  forms  of 
beauty,  existing  in  time.    It  is  without  mean- 
ing, it  is  without  "subject,"  it  is  without  idea. 
It  creates  a  world  of  its  own,  fictitious,  fabu- 
lous, and  irrelevant  —  a  world  of  sound,  eva-j 
nescent  yet  indestructible. 

III.    THE   SIGNIFICANCE  OF  MUSIC 

Music  deals  first  of  all  with  feeling  or  emo-       / 
tion.   But  since  emotion  may  be  guided  by  the 
mTnd  and  transfused  by  the  imagination, — 
since  emotion  is  not  a  separate  and  isolated 
part  of  our  being,  —  so  music  may  be  so  or- 
dered by  the  mind  and  so  transfused  by  the 
imagination  as  to  become  intellectual  and  im- 
aginative.   It  is  true  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  music  produced  and  pefforrneH  deals  only 
with  emotion,  but  this  is  equally  true  of  litera- 
ture.   The  popular  novel  is  nine  tenths  emo-     S* 
tion,  one  tenth  mind,  and  the  rest  imagination'.^ 
So  it  is  with  music,  though  such  illogical  in- 
vention as  one  constantly  finds  in  many  pop- 
ular novels  would  be  intolerable  in  any  music. 

[  -3  ] 


Music   AND   LIFE 

Since  there  seems  to  be  an  incongruity  between 
the  statement  that  music  has  no  definite  mean- 
ing and  the  statement  that  it  is  intellectual,  let 
us  take  a  specific  illustration  and  see  if  we  can- 
not reconcile  the  apparent  connection. 

We  must  first  of  all  distinguish  between  the 
quality  itself  and  the  expression  of  the  quality. 
A  person  may  have  a  mind  stored  with  wisdom 
and  be  completely  what  we  call  "  intellectual," 
without  ever  expressing  himself  by  a  spoken 
or  written  word.  His  wisdom  exists  by  itself 
and  for  itself,  entirely  separated  from  its  ex- 
pression. If  he  expresses  himself,  and  with 
skill,  we  call  that  expression  literature,  but,  in 
any  case,  it  remains  wisdom.  And  what  is  wis- 
dom ?  It  is  what  Mr.  Eliot  describes  a  liberal 
education  to  be  —  "a  state  of  mind  "  ;  it  is  the 
fusion  of  knowledge  with  experience,  with  feel- 
ing, and  with  imagination. 

Now  words  are  symbols  which  diminish  in 
their  efficacy  as  they  try  to  compass  feeling 
and  imagination.  If  the  wise  man  is  cold,  he 
can  say,  "  I  am  cold  "  ;  but  if  he  wishes  to  tell 
you  of  his  idea  of  God,  he  has  no  words  ade- 
quate for  the  purpose,  because  he  is  dealing 
with  something  which  is  not  in  the  domain  of 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

knowledge  alone  —  which  he  can  feel,  or  per- 
haps imagine,  but  cannot  define.  The  reason 
alone  never  even  touches  the  far-away  circle 
of  that  perfection  which  we  believe  to  exist, 
and  the  subtle  inner  relations  between  man 
and  the  visible  and  invisible  world  refuse  to 
be  harnessed  to  language.  For  these  he  finds 
expression  in  some  form  of  beauty.  "  The 
beautiful,"  says  Goethe,  "  is  a  manifestation 
of  the  secret  laws  of  nature  which,  but  for  this 
appearance,  had  been  forever  concealed  from 
us." 

So  we  say  that  in  wisdom  the  qualities  we 
call  insight,  feeling,  and  imagination  must  find 
for  themselves  some  more  plastic  medium  of 
expression  than  language.  And  when  that  plas- 
tic medium,  though  non-definitive,  has  those 
qualities  of  coherence,  continuity,  and  form 
which  are  essential  to  all  intellectual  expres- 
sion, we  are  justified  in  calling  it  "intellec- 
tual." Let  us  take  for  our  specific  illustration  >. 
the  first  movement  of  the  Ninth  Symphony 
of  Beethoven.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  this 
as  an  expression  of  feeling  only,  untouched  by 
thought  or  by  imagination.  The  inevitable 
conclusion  arrived  at  by  any  person  who  un- 

[  15] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

derstands  it  is  that  the  feeling  is  absolutely 
controlled  by  the  mind,  and  that  it  is  imagi- 
nation that  gives  it  its  extraordinary  effect. 
Compare  it  with  the  first  movement  of  Tschai- 
kovsky's  "  Pathetique  Symphony  "  where  emo- 
tion runs  riot;  the  difference  is  as  great  as 
that  between  "Victory"  and  "The  Deemster." 
Compare  it  with  a  symphony  by  Mendelssohn, 
and  the  contrast  is  as  vivid  as  that  between  a 
novel  by  Meredith  and  one  by  Miss  Brad- 
don.  Beethoven's  music  contains,  in  the  first 
place,  themes  whose  import  all  completely  re- 
ceptive persons  feel  to  be  profound.  (That 
these  themes  do  not  so  impress  others  is  due 
either  to  atrophy  of  the  musical  faculty,  to 
mental  lassitude,  or  to  lack  of  experience  of 
great  music.)  These  themes  are  presented  in 
such  design  as  not  only  to  make  the  whole 
movement  entirely  coherent,  but  to  give  it  a 
sense  of  rushing  onward  to  an  inevitable  con- 
clusion. So  intensive  is  their  treatment  that 
almost  the  whole  five  hundred  or  more  meas- 
ures grow  out  of  the  original  theme  or  thesis, 
some  fifteen  measures  long.  So  imaginative  is 
it  that  it  seems  to  gather  to  itself  all  related 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  and  fuse  them  into 

[  '6] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

one.  In  short,  we  must  say  that  this  music 
emanates  from  the  mind  of  a  great  man,  who 
has  subjected  emotion  to  the  control  of  the 
will  and  who  has  exercised  that  highest  func- 
tion of  the  mind  that  we  call  imagination. 

May  we  not  say,  then,  that  this  is  wisdom  ? 
Shall  we  deny  it  because  it  cannot  be  spelled 
out  word  by  word  ?  Shall  we  not  rather  say 
that  music  is  a  means  of  expressing  the  deep- 
est wisdom,  that  which  defies  categorical  ex- 
pression ?  May  we  not  accept  SchflOfifih augjL&-J 
saying :  "  Music  is  an  image  of  the  will "  ? 
Are  we  not  justified  in  stating  that  music  is 
even  an  expression  of  the  deepest  relation  with 
the  visible  and  invisible  world  which  the  soul 
of  man  is  capable  of  experiencing,  and  that 
these  relations,  inexpressible  in  more  concrete 
manifestations,  are  expressible  in  music?  The 
pathos  and  resignation  and  courage  in  the  first 
movement  of  the  Ninth  Symphony  of  Bee- 
thoven are  not  his  or  yours  or  mine;  they  are 
the  qualities  themselves  in  their  infinite  being, 
more  true,  more  noble,  more  pure  than  his  or 
yours  or  mine.  May  we  not,  then,  even  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that  music  tells  us  the  deepest 
truths  of  human  life ;  that  "  it  comes,"  as  Sy- 

[  -7] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

monds  says,  "  speaking  the  highest  wisdom  in 
a  language  our  reason  does  not  understand 
because  it  is  older  and  deeper  and  closer  than 
reason  ? " 

IV.  "  BEAUTY  IS  TRUTH,  TRUTH  BEAUTY  " 

I  have  already  stated  that  the  other  arts 
have  for  their  ideal  that  fusing  of  subject  and 
expression  which  in  music  is  complete,  and  I 
have  further  stated  that  the  purpose  or  object 
t,  of  music  is  to  present  emotion  ordered  and 
guided  by  the  mind  and  illumined  by  the  im- 
agination. In  this  latter  respect  all  the  arts  are 
alike.  It  is  in  the  very  nature  of  their  being 
that  they  seek  to  find  the  heart  of  the  great 
secret.  The  purpose  of  painting  and  sculpture 
is  not  to  present  objects  as  objects,  but  to  set 
them  forth  in  such  harmonious  perfection  of 
line  and  color  and  rhythm  as  will  reveal  their 
deepest  significance.  The  greatest  examples  of 
the  plastic  arts  cannot  be  understood  through 
sense-perception  of  objects.  Rembrandt  is  a 
greater  painter  than  Bougereau,  not  only  be- 
cause he  has  superior  technique,  but  because 
he  has  deeper  insight.  This  is  why  the  "  sub- 
ject" in  painting  is  comparatively  unimportant. 
[  ,8] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

It  is  the  same  with  literature.  In  "Jane 
Eyre "  the  "  subject "  is  more  tangible  and 
vivid  than  in  "  Villette,"  but  the  latter  is  the 
finer  book,  because  the  technical  skill  is  greater, 
the  insight  deeper.  "  There  are  no  good  sub- 
jects or  bad  subjects,"  says  Hugo  ;  "there  are 
only  good  poets  and  bad  poets."  Any  subject 
is  interesting  when  a  master-mind  presents  it 
in  full  significance.  A  custom-house  is  a  pro- 
saic thing,  and  a  custom-house  that  has  neither 
exports  nor  imports,  but  only  a  few  sleepy  old 
pensioners  dozing  in  the  sun,  might  be  thought 
a  dull  subject  for  a  writer;  but  Hawthorne's 
imagination  and  subtlety  of  literary  expression 
clothe  it  with  both  beauty  and  significance. 
Even  the  noblest  and  most  tragic  deeds  find 
their  best  justification  in  a  sublime  harmony 
of  beauty.  The  Greeks  knew  this  well.  Eurip- 
ides, in  "  The  Trojan  Women,"  puts  on  the 
lips  of  Hecuba  these  words  :  — 

"  Had  He  not  turned  us  in  his  hand,  and  thrust 
Our  high  things  low  and  shook  our  hills  as  dust, 
We  had  not  been  this  splendor,  and  our  wrong 
An  everlasting  music  for  the  song 
Of  earth  and  heaven!"  * 

1  Gilbert  Murray  translation. 

[  '9] 


I 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Deeds,  monuments,  cities,  and  civilizations 
fade  into  nothingness,  but  a  few  words,  or  a 
strain  of  music  turned  by  an  artist,  will  live 
on  forever.  The  battle  of  Gettysburg  will  be- 
come merely  a  paragraph  of  history,  the  causes 
for  which  it  was  fought  will  be  as  nothing,  but 
the  words  spoken  by  Lincoln  will  be  preserved 
for  all  time,  not  because  they  were  wise,  but 
because  they  were  wise  and  beautiful. 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  condition.  An 
occasional  great  writer  has  railed  at  beauty, 
only  to  prove  finally  that  his  own  permanence 
depended  on  it.  Carlyle,  for  example,  was  more 
caustic  than  usual  when  he  discussed  poetry. 
His  comment  on  Browning's  "  The  Ring  and 
the  Book  "  ran  thus  :  "  A  wonderful  book,  one 
of  the  most  wonderful  ever  written.  I  re-read  it 
all  through — all  made  out  of  an  'Old  Bailey' 
story  that  might  have  been  told  in  ten  lines, 
and  only  wants  forgetting."  Yet  the  best  part 
of  "Sartor  Resartus"  is  its  beauty,  and  there 
are  in  "  The  French  Revolution  "  many  pas- 
sages of  quite  perfect  poetic  imagery  and  char- 
acterization without  which  it  would  lose  much 
of  its  value.  What  we  call  "Carlyle"  is  no 
longer  a  man  ;  nor  is  it  a  philosophy,  or  a  his- 
[so] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

tory ;  it  is  nothing  but  a  style,  a  manner  of 
saying  things  —  an  individual,  characteristic, 
and  strange  blend  of  hard  and  soft,  of  high 
and  low,  of  rugged  and  tender,  all  struggling 
with  a  Puritanical  conscience.  So  we  say  that 
beauty  is  the  lodestone  by  which  all  life  is 
tested. 

No  game  can  be  perfectly  played  unless 
the  physical  motions  are  timed  in  beauty ;  no 
machine  will  act  save  in  perfect  synthesis ;  no 
character  is  strong  until  it  attains  a  harmony 
within  itself.  Beauty  is  the  matrix  in  which  life 
shall  be  finally  moulded. 

All  forms  of  artistic  expression,  then,  re- 
quire that  we  shall  see  the  object  not  as  fact 
but  as  art.  If  it  is  fact — that  is,  merely  an 
isolated  object  or  event — it  remains  insignifi- 
cant until  some  artist  catches  it  up  into  the 
wider  realm  in  which  it  belongs  and  sets  it 
forth  in  some  form  of  beauty.  If  we  accept 
this  conception  of  all  the  arts  as  seeking  the 
inner  sense  of  things,  as  portraying  life  in  its 
essence  rather  than  in  its  outward  manifesta- 
tions, we  shall  be  able  to  understand  the  pe- 
culiar power  of  music.  It  becomes  then,  not 
merely  a  series  of  sounds  arranged  so  as  to 


Music  AND  LIFE 

be  euphonious  and  pleasing  to  the  ear,  but  a 
book  of  life  which  contains  the  ultimate  ex- 
pression of  our  histinct  and  of  our  wisdom. 
The  Third  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  for  ex- 
ample, gives  us  a  more  convincing  present- 
ment of  heroic  struggle  than  is  to  be  found  in 
the  other  arts  or  in  literature,  first,  because  it 
has  the  power  to  present  it  in  the  element  of 
time,  which  is  an  essential  part  of  any  heroic 
deed ;  second,  because  it  presents  it  as  a  qual- 
ity disassociated  from  a  particular  heroism  and 
therefore  elevated  into  a  type  and  made  eter- 
nal ;  and  third,  because  it  presents  it  in  con- 
junction with  those  other  qualities  without 
which  there  can  be  no  heroism  at  all.  (For  no 
quality  in  life  or  element  in  nature  exists  for 
us  save  as  the  opposite  or  reverse  of  some- 
thing else.  What  we  call  light  is  comprehen- 
sible only  as  the  opposite  of  darkness ;  love 
is  the  opposite  of  hate,  cold  of  heat,  and  so 
forth.) 

Each  of  the  other  arts  has  one  or  two  of 
these  qualities ;  none  has  all  of  them.  The 
novelist,  for  example,  can  use  the  first  and  last 
but  not  the  second.  Meredith's  "Vittoria"  is 
an  ideal  presentment  of  the  struggle  for  Italian 

[aa] 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

unity,  but  the  heroism  which  constitutes  the 
essence  of  the  book  has  to  find  expression 
through  actual  persons.  So  the  greatest  virtue 
of  music  lies  not  alone  in  its  peculiar  unifica- 
tion of  matter  and  manner,  its  artistic  perfec- 
tion, but  in  the  power  which  that  gives  it  to 
create  a  world  not  based  on  the  outward  and 
the  visible,  but  on  that  invisible  realm  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  aspiration  which  is  our 
real  world.  For  if  there  is  any  one  certain  his- 
torical fact,  it  is  that  from  the  earliest  times 
until  now  man  has  continually  sought  some  \  , 
escape  from  reality,  some  building  up  of  a  per-  •*•*•- 
feet  world  of  ideal  beauty  which  should  still 
his  eternal  dissatisfaction  with  the  imperfec- 
tions and  inconsistencies  of  his  own  life.  It  is 
in  the  very  nature  of  his  situation  that  he  should 
seek  some  perfection  somewhere.  So  he  has 
tried  to  paint  this  perfection  on  canvas,  ideal- 
izing life  and  nature  into  a  satisfying  form  of 
beauty ;  or  he  has  carved  a  physical  perfection 
in  marble  to  deify  himself  and  give  himself  a 
place  in  nature;  or  he  has  built  up  for  himself 
a  world  of  magical  words  in  which  all  his  no- 
blest dreams  strive  for  expression.  Everywhere 
and  always  he  has  had  this  dream,  which  has 


Music  AND  LIFE 

saved  him  when  all  else  failed.  And  the  noblest 
of  his  dreamers  have  been  those  whose  imagi- 
nations have  transcended  the  limitations  of  the 
actual  and  brought  it  into  relation  with  the  un- 
known. 

Music,  obeying  the  great  laws  that  under- 
lie all  life  and  to  which  all  the  arts  are  subject, 
having  for  its  means  of  expression  the  most 
plastic  of  all  media,  depending  on  intuitive 
perception  of  truth,  not  compelled  to  perpet- 
uate objects,  dealing  with  that  larger  part  of 
man's  being  which  lies  hidden  beneath  both 
his  acts  and  his  thoughts,  —  that  which  Carlyle 
calls  "the  deep  fathomless  domain  of  the  Un- 
conscious,"- —  music  is  the  one  perfect  medium 
for  this  dream  of  humanity.  In  its  expression 
of  human  emotions  it  enjoys  the  inestimable 
advantage  of  entire  irrelevance.  It  does  not 
have  to  develop  a  character  or  person,  but 
only  an  attribute  or  quality.  The  "  Eroica " 
symphony,  for  example,  has  all  the  force  of  a 
mythological  epic  in  which  the  heroes  are  pure 
spirit-types  of  humanity,  of  no  age  or  time  — 
gods,  if  you  will,  and  above  human  limita- 
tions. 

This  is  the  quality  of  music  that  makes  it 


WHAT  is  Music  ? 

precious  to  us.  It  builds  for  us  an  immaterial 
world  —  not  made  of  objects,  or  theories,  or 
dogmas,  or  philosophies,  but  of  pure  spirit 
—  a  means  of  escape  from  the  thralldom  of 
every  day. 


CHAPTER  II 
MUSIC  FOR  CHILDREN 

I.    TRAINING  THE   SENSE  FOR  BEAUTY 

IN  what  I  have  to  say  about  music  for  children 
I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  diversity  of  Ameri- 
can life,  and  of  the  prevalent  idea  that  Ameri- 
cans do  not  pay  much  attention  to  music  (or 
to  any  other  form  of  beauty)  because  they  live 
in  a  new  country  in  which  the  greater  part  of 
their  energy  is  devoted  to  subduing  nature  and 
carving  their  fortunes.  As  a  nation  we  are  said 
to  be  too  diverse  to  have  evolved  any  definite 
aesthetic  practice,  and  we  suppose  ourselves  too 
busy  with  the  practical  things  in  life  to  pay 
much  attention  to  it. 

While  it  is  doubtless  true  that  there  are 
numberless  prosperous  American  families  in 
which  the  words  "  art "  and  "  literature  "  mean 
nothing  whatever,  this  condition  is  due,  in 
most  cases,  not  to  lack  of  time,  but  to  lack  of 
inclination.  We,  like  other  people,  do  what 
we  like  to  do.  No  real  attention  is  paid  in 

[26] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

childhood  to  the  cultivation  of  a  love  of  the 
beautiful ;  very  little  attention  is  paid  to  it 
in  the  educational  institutions  where  we  are 
trained ;  so  we  grow  up  and  enter  upon  life 
with  a  desultory  liking  for  music,  with  a  dis- 
tinct lack  of  appreciation  for  poetry,  and  with 
almost  no  interest  in  painting  or  sculpture. 

And  this  condition  is  likely  to  increase 
rather  than  diminish  as  time  goes  on,  until, 
having  finally  arrived  at  moments  of  leisure  and 
finding  that  neither  our  money  nor  any  other 
material  possession  gives  us  any  deep  or  per- 
manent satisfaction,  we  turn  to  beauty  only  to 
be  confronted  with  the  old  warning :  "  Too 
late,  ye  cannot  enter  now."  For  we  have  ar- 
rived at  the  time  when,  in  Meredith's  phrase, 
"  Nature  stops,  and  says  to  us, <  Thou  art  now 
what  thou  wilt  be.' '  For  this  capacity  for 
understanding  and  loving  great  books  and 
paintings  and  music  has  to  grow  with  our  own 
growth  and  cannot  be  postponed  to  another 
season.  The  average  American  man  is  sup- 
posed to  have  no  time  for  these  things.  He 
has  time,  but  he  refuses  to  turn  it  into  leisure, 
—  leisure  which  means  contemplation  and 
thoughtfulness, —  though  he  very  likely  knows 


Music  AND  LIFE 

that  this  has  been  accomplished  over  and  over 
again  by  men  who  have  saved  out  of  a  busy 
life  for  that  purpose  a  little  time  every  day. 

One  recalls  Darwin's  pathetic  statement 
wherein  he  describes  his  early  love  for  poetry 
and  music,  and  the  final  complete  loss  of  those 
"capabilities"  through  neglect.  "The  loss  of 
these  tastes,"  he  says,  "  is  a  loss  of  happiness, 
and  may  possibly  be  injurious  to  the  intellect, 
and  more  probably  to  the  moral  character  by 
enfeebling  the  emotional  part  of  our  nature." 

The  intellect  of  man,  in  itself,  is  never  su- 
preme or  sufficient.  Feeling  or  instinct  is  half 
of  knowledge.  "  Whoever  walks  a  furlong 
without  sympathy,"  says  Whitman,  "  walks 
to  his  own  funeral  drest  in  his  shroud."  Of 
any  man,  American  or  otherwise,  who  lives 
his  life  unmindful  of  all  beauty  we  may  justly 
say,  as  Carlyle  said  of  Diderot,  "  He  dwelt  all 
his  days  in  a  thin  rind  of  the  Conscious ;  the 
deep  fathomless  domain  of  the  Unconscious 
whereon  the  other  rests  and  has  its  meaning 
was  not  under  any  shape  surmised  by  him." 

Must  not  the  education  of  children  in  beauty 
begin,  then,  with  their  parents  ?  Must  they 
not  be  aroused,  at  least,  to  an  intellectual  con- 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

vlction  of  its  value,  even  though  they  have 
missed  its  joy  ?  Can  the  matter  be  safely  left 
to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  schools  themselves 
whose  curricula  are  already  overcrowded  with 
methods  of  escape  from  this  very  thing  ?  Does 
not  the  school  answer  the  general  conception 
of  education  obtaining  among  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  the  school-children  ?  Can  it  be 
expected  —  is  it  possible  for  it  —  to  rise  far 
above  that  conception?  My  object  is  there- 
fore to  suggest,  first,  that  the  perception  of 
beauty  is,  in  the  highest  sense,  education"; 
second,  that  music  is  especially  so,  because  it 
is  the  purest  form  of  beauty ;  and,  third,  that 
music  is  the  only  form  of  beauty  by  means  of 
which  very  young  children  can  be  educated, 
because  it  is  the  only  form  accessible  to  them. 
Need  I  point  out  that  there  has  never  been 
a  time  in  the  history  of  mankind  when  human 
beings  have  not  paid  tribute  to  beauty  ?  In 
their  attempt  to  escape  what  may  be  called  the 
traffic  of  life  and  to  rise  above  its  sordid  limi- 
tations, have  they  not  always  and  everywhere 
created  for  themselves  some  sort  of  detached 
ideal  by  means  of  which  they  justified  them- 
selves in  an  otherwise  unintelligible  world? 

[49] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

This  ideal  may  have  been  a  god  of  stone,  but 
it  figured  for  them  a  perfect  absolution.  Sur- 
rounded by  brutal  forces  about  which  they 
knew  nothing,  subject  to  pestilence,  to  war, 
to  starvation,  to  the  fury  of  the  elements,  un- 
able safely  to  shelter  their  bodies,  they  built 
for  their  souls  a  safe  elysium.  This  ideal  was 
always  one  of  order  and  beauty ;  every  civili- 
zation has  possessed  it,  and  it  was  to  each 
civilization  not  only  religion,  but  also  what  we 
call  "  art." 

I  referred  in  the  first  chapter  to  that  quality 
in  art  which  consists  in  its  "  holding  a  mirror 
up  to  nature,"  and  thus  focusing  our  atten- 
tion. Browning  expresses  this  in  "  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi,"  where  he  says,  — 

"  For,  don't  you  mark,  we  're  made  so  that  we  love 
First  when  we  see  them  painted,  things  we  have  passed 
Perhaps  a  hundred  times  nor  cared  to  see." 

But  the  highest  office  of  art  is  not  so  much  to 
attract  our  attention  to  beautiful  objects  as  to 
make  us  realize  through  the  artist's  skill  what 
the  objects  signify.  It  is  the  artist  who  so  de- 
picts life  as  to  make  it  intelligible  to  us ;  it  is 
he  who  sees  all  those  deeper  relations  which 
underlie  all  things ;  he,  and  he  only,  can  so 

[30] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

present  human  aspirations  and  human  actions 
as  to  lift  them  out  of  the  maze  and  give  them 
order  and  sequence.  Through  all  the  welter 
of  political  theories,  of  philosophies,  of  dogmas 
insisted  on  at  the  point  of  excommunication ; 
amid  the  discoveries  of  science  and  the  ten- 
dency to  make  life  into  a  mechanically  oper- 
ated thing,  the  still  small  voice  of  the  poet 
rises  always  supreme  —  supreme  in  wisdom, 
supreme  in  insight,  the  seer,  the  prophet,  the 
philosopher ;  when  all  else  has  passed  he  re- 
mains, for  beauty  is  the  only  permanence.  To 
eliminate  beauty  from  education  is  to  destroy 
its  very  soul. 

From  the  law  of  gravity  to  Shelley's  "  To 
a  Skylark,"  beauty  is  the  central  element.  In 
physics, in  mathematics, in  astronomy,  in  chem- 
istry, there  is  the  same  perfection  of  order  and 
sequence,  the  same  correlation  of  forces,  the 
same  attraction  of  matter  which,  operating  in 
the  fine  arts,  brings  about  what  we  call  "  paint- 
ing," "  sculpture,"  "  poetry,"  and  "  music." 
The  whole  of  nature  is  a  postulate  of  this  doc- 
trine, and  there  is  no  subject  taught  from  kin- 
dergarten to  college  which  may  not  be  taught 
as  in  accord  with  it.  There  is  a  rhythm  of  beauty 

[3-  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

in  all  things  animate  and  inanimate  —  an  end- 
less variety  around  a  central  unity.  The  indi- 
viduality in  nature  and  in  human  life  is  as  a 
rhythmic  diversity  to  a  divine  and  central 
unity.  The  leaves  of  a  maple  tree  are  all  alike 
and  all  different;  the  difference  between  the 
mechanical  arts  and  the  fine  arts  is  a  difference 
of  rhythmic  flexibility  :  one  is  fixed  in  rhythm 
in  accordance  with  physical  laws,  and  acts  in 
perfect  sequence  and  regularity;  the  other  is 
a  free  individualized  rhythmic  play  around  a 
fixed  center.  The  painter  may  not  dispose  the 
objects  on  his  canvas  as  he  pleases  —  nature 
allows  him  only  a  certain  freedom  ;  the  sculp- 
tor may  distribute  his  weights  and  his  rhythms 
around  the  axis  with  only  so  much  freedom 
from  the  demands  of  nature  as  his  particular 
purpose  justifies ;  even  the  strain  of  music, 
which  seems  to  wander  so  much  at  will  that  it 
is  often  called  a  "  rhapsody," — it,  too,  is  merely 
a  play  of  rhythms  and  contours  around  a  fixed 
center,  and  conforms  to  a  common  purpose  just 
as  a  maple  leaf  does.  A  machine  acts  in  me- 
chanical synthesis,  a  melody  acts  in  aesthetic 
synthesis ;  neither  is  free.  So  we  say  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  isolated  fact,  or  subject,  or  idea. 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

Thus  everything  taught  to  children  can  be 
taught  as  beauty,  and  if  it  is  not  so  taught, 
its  very  essence  must  dissolve  and  disappear. 
"  The  mean  distance  from  the  earth  to  the 
moon  is  about  two  hundred  and  forty  thou- 
sand miles  "  ;  "two  and  two  make  four  " ;  "  an 
island  is  a  body  of  land  entirely  surrounded 
by  water";  —  so  a  child  learns  his  lesson  in 
what  are  called  facts  (the  most  deceptive  and 
soulless  things  in  the  world).  To  him  "  the 
moon"  and  "a  mile"  are  little  more  than 
words;  2  +  2  are  troublesome  hieroglyphics; 
"an  island"  is,  perhaps,  merely  a  word  in  a 
physical  geography  book  ;  but  to  you  all  these 
objects  and  quantities  are,  perhaps,  beautiful; 
for  you 

"The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  around  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare ' '  ; 

for  you  numbers  have  come  to  have  that  sig- 
nificance which  makes  them  beautiful ;  an  island 
may  have  touched  your  imagination  as  it  has 
Conrad's,  who  calls  it  "  a  great  ship  anchored 
in  the  open  sea  "  ;  you  have  seen  that  beauty 
which  lies  behind  facts  when  they  fall,  as  with 
a  click,  into  the  mechanism  of  things.  So  must 
children  be  taught  to  realize  at  the  very  begin- 

[33] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

ning  something  of  that  great  unity  which  per- 
vades the  world  of  thought  and  of  matter. 
Somej:omprehension  must  be  given  to  them 
of  that  marvelous  sense  of  fitting  together,  of 
perfect  correspondence,  which  all  nature  re- 
veals and  which  is  ultimately  beauty.  It  is  this 
quality,  residing  in  every  subject,  which  con- 
stitutes the  justification  for  our  insistence  on 
beauty  as  a  part  of  education. 

With  our  present  systems  of  education  all 
ideality  is  crushed,  for  this  ideality  is  a  per- 
sonal quality,  whereas  all  we  are,  we  are  in  mass. 
"  You  are  trying  to  make  that  boy  into  another 
you,"  said  Emerson,  some  fifty  years  ago ; 
"  one 's  enough."  Modern  education,  subject 
>/  to  constant  whims,  has  become  a  capacious  maw 
into  which  our  children  are  thrown.  Every- 
thing for  use,  nothing  for  beauty  ;  for  use  means 
money,  while  beauty  —  what  is  beauty  good 
for?  —  (a  question  which  Lowell,  in  one  of 
his  essays,  says  "  would  be  death  to  the  rose  and 
be  answered  triumphantly  by  the  cabbage  " ). 
This  is  indeed  an  old  thesis,  but  never  has  it 
more  needed  stating  than  now.  It  applies 
everywhere.  Literature  taught  as  beauty  is 
uplifting  and  joyful ;  taught  as  syntax  it  is  dead 

[34] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

and  cheerless.  All  other  forms  of  instruction 
lose  their  force  if  they  are  detached  from  that 
poetic  harmony  of  which  they  are  a  part.  Num- 
bers, cities,  machines,  symphonies,  the  objects 
on  your  table,  you  yourself,  —  all  these  are  to 
be  seen  as  belonging  to  this  harmony,  without 
which  the  world  is  Bedlam. 

American  children  are  musical,  American 
adults  are  not,  and  the  chief  reason  lies  in  the 
wasted  opportunities  of  childhood.  If  the  natu- 
ral taste  of  our  children  for  music  were  properly 
developed,  they  would  continue  to  practice  it 
and  to  find  pleasure  in  doing  so,  and  thus  would 
avoid  the  fatal  error  of  postponing  their  heaven 
to  another  time  —  the  great  mistake  of  life  and 
of  theology. 

I  desire  therefore  to  deal  here  with  the  pos- 
sibilities which  music  offers  to  children,  not  to 
a  few  children  in  playing  the  pianoforte,  but  to 
all  children  in  love  and  understanding.  It  is  ob- 
viously desirable  to  make  them  all  love  music, 
and,  since  few  of  them  ever  attain  satisfactory 
proficiency  in  playing  instruments,  our  chief 
problem  lies  in  trying  to  develop  their  taste 
and  thereby  keeping  their  allegiance. 

[35] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

II.    THE  VALUE  OF  SINGING 

In  the  first  chapter  I  discussed  the  qualities 
and  properties  of  music  as  such  —  music,  that 
is,  in  its  pure  estate,  unconnected  with  words 
as  in  songs,  or  with  words,  action,  costume,  and 
scenery,  as  in  opera.  And  now,  in  writing  about 
children's  music,  it  is  still  necessary  to  keep  in 
mind  that,  even  when  music  is  allied  to  words,  it 
has  the  necessities  of  its  own  nature  to  fulfill, 
and  that  the  use  of  suitable  or  even  fine  words 
in  a  child's  song  does  not  change  this  condition. 

In  beginning  this  discussion  I  propose  to 
ignore  for  the  moment  the  effect  in  after  life 
of  what  we  advocate  for  children,  and  I  also 
discard  (with  a  certain  contempt)  the  common 
notion  —  true  enough  in  its  way  —  that  music 
is  for  them  a  rest  and  a  change  after  burden- 
some tasks.  For  we  must  see  music,  in  relation 
to  children,  as  it  really  is.  I  go  behind  the  psy- 
chologist1 who  says,  "...  the  prime  end  of 
musical  education  ...  is  to  train  the  senti- 
ments, to  make  children  feel  nature,  religion, 
country,  home,  duty,  ...  to  guarantee  sanity 
of  the  heart  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of 

1  G.  Stanley  Hall. 

[36] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

life " ;  for  I  say  that  music,  by  itself,  cannot 
make  children  feel  nature,  religion,  country, 
home,  or  duty>  and  that  these  sentiments  are 
aroused  by  the  heightened  effect  of  words  set 
to  music,  and  not  by  the  music  itself.  The 
prime  end  of  music  —  and  of  the  other  arts  — 
is  beauty.  Song  is  not  story,  melodies  have 
nothing  to  do  with  morals,  and  all  the  theories 
about  music  —  such  as  those  of  Darwin  and 
Spencer  —  are  wrong  when  they  attribute  to 
it  any  ulterior  purpose  or  origin  whatever. 
Music  is  an  end,  not  a  means. 

Now  this  beauty  which  the  soul  of  man 
craves,  and  always  has  craved,  cannot  be 
brought  to  little  children  in  literary  form,  be- 
cause they  cannot  read  or  because  their  knowl- 
edge of  words  is  too  limited ;  nor  can  it  be 
brought  to  them  in  the  form  of  painting,  be- 
cause they  are  not  sufficiently  sensitive  to  color- 
vibrations  ;  nor  of  sculpture,  for  their  sense  .of 
form  is  not  sufficiently  developed.  In  fact, 
their  power  of  response  is  exceedingly  limited 
in  most  directions.  They  can  neither  draw  nor 
paint  nor  write  nor  read,  so  that  this  beauty 
which  we  value  so  highly  seems  shut  out  from 
them.  This  were  so  but  for  music. 

[37] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

By  singing,  and  by  singing  only,  a  little 
child  of  five  may  come  in  contact  with  a  pure 
and  perfect  form  of  beauty.  Not  only  that, 
but  the  child  can  reproduce  this  beauty  en- 
tirely unaided,  and  in  the  process'  of  doing  so 
its  whole  being  —  body,  mind,  heart,  and  soul 
—  is  engaged.  The  song,  for  the  moment,  is 
the  child.  There  is  no  possible  realization  of 
the  little  personality  comparable  to  this.  Here, 
in  sounds,  is  that  correlation  of  impulses  in 
which  the  stars  move ;  here  is  the  world  of 
order  and  beauty  in  miniature ;  here  is  a  micro- 
cosm of  life;  here  is  a  talisman  against  the  cold, 
unmeaning  facts  which  are  driven  into  chil- 
dren's brains  to  jostle  one  another  in  unfriendly 
companionship.  Through  this  they  can  feel  a 
beauty  and  order  which  their  minds  are  inca- 
pable of  grasping.  The  joy  which  a  child  gets 
in  reproducing  beautiful  melodies  is  like  no 
other  experience  in  life.  It  is  absolutely  a  per- 
sonal act,  for  the  music  lends  itself  to  the  child's^ 
individuality  asjiothing  else  does.  Music,  in 
this  sense,  preserves  in  children  that  ideality 
whjch  is  one  of  the  most  precious  possessions 
of  childhood,  and  which  we  would  fain  keep 
in  after  life;  which  loves  flowers  and  animals, 

[38] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

which  sees  the  truth  in  fairy  stories,  which 
believes  everything  to  be  good  and  is  alien  to 
everything  sinister,  which  sees  the  moon  and 
stars,  not  as  objects  so  many  millions  of  miles 
from  the  earth,  and  parts  of  a  great  solar  sys- 
tem, but  as  lanterns  hung  in  the  heavens. 

The  prime  object,  then,  of  musical  education 
for  children  is  so  to  develop  their  musical  sen- 
sibilities as  to  make  them  love  and  understand 
the  best  music.  Does  this  bring  up  the  ques- 
tion, "  What  is  the  best  music  ? "  By  the 
"  best "  music  I  mean  exactly  what  I  should 
mean  if  I  were  to  substitute  the  word  "  litera- 
ture "for  "music"  —  I  mean  the  composi- 
tions of  the  great  masters.  And  if  you  say  that 
the  great  masters  did  not  write  music  suitable 
for  little  children,  I  reply  that  such  music  has 
nevertheless  been  produced  by  all  races  in 
their  childhood,  that  it  exists  in  profusion,  that 
it  is  commonly  known  as  "  folk-song,"  that  it 
is  the  basis  upon  which  much  of  the  greatest 
music  in  the  world  rests,  and,  finally,  that  it  is 
the  natural  and,  indeed,  the  inevitable  means 
of  approath  to  such  great  music. 

This  basis,  to  which  I  refer,  is  both  actual 
and  ideal.  Many  great  composers  have  used 

[39] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Actual  folk-melodies.  The  chorales  in  Bach's 
"  St.  Matthew  Passion,"  for  example,  are 
based  on  traditional  melodies.  In  Haydn's  in- 
strumental compositions  folk-songs  are  often 
used  verbatim,  and  the  total  number  of  them 
to  be  found  in  his  works  is  very  great.  Nota- 
ble examples  may  be  found  in  Beethoven  — 
as  in  the  "  Rasoumoffsky  "  quartettes,  and  the 
Seventh  Symphony  —  while  Schubert,  Brahms, 
and  Tschaikovsky  used  folk-melodies  freely. 
Dvorak  and  Grieg  are  essentially  national  in 
their  idiom  and  style,  and  folk-music  may  be 
said  to  be  the  basis  of  the  music  of  each. 
Ideally  the  debt  of  music  to  folk-song  is  greater 
still.  Any  typical,  Adagio  of  Beethoven  (such 
as  that  in  the  so-called  "  Pathetique  Sonata") 
springs  from  folk-song,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
long  process  of  development  through  which 
music  had  passed,  reflects — in  a  more  mature 
form  —  the  same  sentiment  one  finds  in  the 
original.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Is  there 
any  art,  or  any  other  intellectual  activity  of 
man,  of  which  the  same  thing  cannot  be  said  ? 
Were  not  Keats  and  Shelley  waiting  to  be 
born  of  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  ?  Is  there 
such  a  thing  as  a  fruit  without  a  vine ;  a  bios- 

[40] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

som  without  a  stem;  an  end  without  a  begin- 
ning ?  There  have  been  composers,  poets,  and 
painters  who  have  lived  detached  from  the 
common  consciousness  —  like  those  strange 
organisms  in  nature  that  float  in  sea  or  air 
and  draw  nothing  from  the  earth's  native  soil ; 
but  all  the  greatest  minds  have  been  rooted 
in  the  past  and  have  drawn  their  inspiration 
from  common  human  experience.  Keeping  in 
mind,  then,  that  our  object  is  to  train  the  taste 
of  children  so  that  they  will  love  the  best 
music,  let  us  examine  what  is  actually  taking 
place  in  the  teaching  of  music  to  children; 

III.    CURRENT  METHODS  OF  TEACHING 

The  most  common  fallacy  in  our  teaching 
consists  in  putting  knowledge  before  experi- 
ence, or  theory  before  practice.  Children  are 
taught  about  music JjeforeLlhey  have  had  su£- 
ficient  experience  of  it.  They  are  taught,  for 
example,  to  pin  pasteboard  notes  on  a  make- 
belief  staff;  they  are  told  that  one  note  is  the 
father-note  and  another  the  mother-note  (one 
supposes  the  chromatics  to  be  irascible  old- 
maid  aunts) ;  all  sorts  of  subterfuges  are  re- 
sorted to  in  an  attempt  to  teach  them  what 

[41  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

they  are  too  young  to  learn  and  what,  in  any 
case,  can  have  no  significance  whatever  except 
when  based  on  a  long  process  of  actual  experi- 
ence. One  might  as  well  try  to  satisfy  a  hungry 
child  with  a  picture  of  an  apple  as  to  show  a 
child  notes  before  it  has  dealt  with  sounds. 

This,  then,  is  our  great  fallacy.  It  is  impos- 
sible  to  expect  children  to  be  musical  if  they 
begin  with  symbols  of  any  kind.  Furthermore, 
in  the  teaching  of  songs  without  notation,  the 
whole  stress  can  be  laid  on  fundamental  things. 
What  are  these  ?  First,  a  sense  of  rhythm.  In 
the  development  of  music  rhythm  came  be- 
fore melody,  as  melody  came  before  harmony. 
Rhythmic  freedom  and  accuracy  are  essential, 
not  only  to  a  child's  musical  education,  but  to 
his  physical  well-being.  Now  there  is  one  thing 
certain,  —  namely,  that  freedom  and  accuracy 
in  rhythm  can  be  brought  about  only  by  actual 
bodily  movement.  (It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell 
on  the  fundamental  difference  between  actual 
rhythmic  movement  and  any  symbol  of  it, 
such  as  a  half  or  quarter  note.)  And  the  be- 
ginning of  the  musical  training  of  children 
should  consist  in  marching,  or  clapping  hands 
to  music  played  by  the  teacher.  Following  this 

[4*  ] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

the  actual  notes  of  simple  folk-song  may  be 
expressed  in  bodily  motion  — as  in  running  or 
dancing —  the  chief  point  being  to  engage  the 
whole  body.  The  beginnings  of  Eurhythmies 
as  evolved  by  Dalcroze  serve  this  purpose  ex- 
cellently, the  meter  of  the  song  (|  or|-)  being 
expressed  with  the  arms,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  the  rhythms  (or  actual  notes)  are  ex- 
pressed by  the  movement  of  the  feet  with  the 
body  in  motion.  It  must  always  be  kept  in 
mind,  however,  that  this  training  is  for  the 
mind  and  the  sesthetic  sense,  and  that  the  bodily 
motions  are  for  the  purpose  of  giving  children 
an  exact  sense  of  rhythm.  Too  great  stress 
cannot  be  laid  on  the  necessity  of  always  using 
good  music.  Furthermore,  I  wish  to  avoid 
the  pitfalls  that  are  spread  at  every  hand  in 
the  form  of  schools  for  self-expression  in  which 
children  and  adults  are  taught  so-called  "  aes- 
thetic "  movements  to  music.  Esthetic  dancing 
is  one  thing ;  a  musical  education  is  another. 
The  cry  for  self-expression  is  characteristic  of 
our  attitude  toward  education.  A  child  or  an 
adult  is  asked  to  listen  to  a  piece  of  music  and 
then  to  express  in  motion  or  pose  what  it  feels. 
Undisciplined  by  experience,  incapable  —  as 

[43] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

we  all  are  —  of  fathoming  the  mystery  of  great 
music,  uneducated  in  those  immutable  laws 
that  underlie  all  aesthetics,  what  can  such  a 
person  express — save  that  idiosyncrasy  which 
he  at  that  moment  is  ?  So,  ultimately,  one 
expresses  a  Beethoven  sonata  or  symphony 
by  poses  and  movements  —  in  a  Greek  dress, 
against  a  curtained  background  and  under  a 
calcium  light !  This  delicate,  transitory,  elu- 
sive, and  impenetrable  thing  we  call  music  is 
something  more  than  motion  ;  yes,  more  even 
than  motion,  melody,  and  harmony  together, 
for  they  are  but  its  body;  its  spirit  can  neither 
be  fathomed  nor  expressed  save  in  terms  of 
itself. 

On  every  side  this  sort  of  instruction  goes 
on.  One  hears  glib  statements  on  the  lips  of 
uninstructed  persons  about  child  psychology, 
"  second  "  brain,  and  so  forth.  A  pupil  is  asked 
to  listen  to  a  phrase  of  music  and  then  tell  the 
teacher  what  "  comes  through."  We  must  re- 
member that  art  is  discipline  and  that  there  is 
no  real  liberty  except  under  law.  We  want 
children  to  use  their  minds  accurately  and  to 
have  control  of  their  bodies,  but  this  use  and 
this  control  can  only  come  through  definite 

[44] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

and  regulated  effort.  Gropings  in  the  dark, 
detached  and  illusive  pursuits  of  the  will-o'- 
the-wisps  of  education  will  never  accomplish 
our  purpose. 

IV.    WHAT  SHOULD  CHILDREN  SING? 

But  even  these  artificial  and  false  methods 
are  less  harmful  to  children  than  are  the  poor, 
vapid,  and  false  songs  by  means  of  which  their 
taste  is  slowly  and  surely  disintegrated.  Now 
the  nature  of  music  is  such  that  many  people 
are  unable  to  see  why  one  child's  song  is  better 
thaji  anQffref—  There  is  a  considerable  number 
of  people  having  to  do  with  children's  music 
who  seem  quite  incapable  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween a  really  beautiful  folk-song  and  a  trivial 
copy  of  one.  Long  association  with  the  latter 
has  produced  the  inevitable  result.  Only  one 
argument  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  such  per- 
sons, an  argument  having  nothing  to  do  with 
aesthetics  —  namely,  that  the  current  music 
for  children  of  one  generation  is  inevitably  dis- 
placed  by  that  of  the  next,  whereas  the  same 
folk-songs  are  continually  reproduced,  and  are 
sung  by  increasing  generations  of  children  the 
world  over.  Any  musician  can  string  together 

[45] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

in  logical  sequence  a  series  of  notes  to  fit  a 
verse  of  simple  poetry  —  almost  every  musi- 
cian has;  any  poet  can  put  together  simple 
and  easily  understood  verses ;  but  the  hand 
of  time  sweeps  them  away  to  oblivion.  Out 
of  the  depths  of  simple  hearts,  in  joy  or  sor- 
row or  privation,  as  a  balm  to  toil  and  labor, 
as  a  cry  from  a  mother's  heart,  in  battle,  in 
moments  of  religious  exaltation  —  wherever 
and  whenever  the  depths  are  stirred,  song 
springs  forth.  A  composer  can  express  only 
what  is  in  him  ;  his  limitations  are  as  con- 
fining as  are  those  of  every  other  artist. 
Dickens  could  no  more  create  a  Clara  Middle- 
ton  than  could  Tschaikovsky  a  theme  like 
that  at  the  opening  of  the  Ninth  Symphony; 
and  to  suppose  that  the  creation  of  a  child's 
song  is  a  simple  matter  of  putting  notes  to- 
^gether  itTa  correct  and  agreeable  sequence,  is 
I  to  misconceive  the  whole  creative  process. 

It  is  our  cardinal  error  that  we  think  any 
tune  good  enough  which  is  attractive  at  first 
hearing.  In  the  music-books  provided  for  kin- 
dergarten and  for  home  singing  there  is  an 
endless  series  of  poor,  vapid,  over-sweet  mel- 
odies which  children,  hungry  for  any  music, 

[46] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

will  sing  readily  enough  for  lack  of  better. 
Some  of  these  tunes  smack  unmistakably  of 
a  Broadway  musical  comedy ;  many  of  them 
are  full  of  mawkish  sentiment  and  affected 
simplicity.  No  real  progress  can  be  made  until 
we  reach  definite  conclusions  on  this  point  and 
act  on  them.  Our  taste  and  that  of  our  chil- 
dren is  never  stationary,  —  we  continually  ad- 
vance or  go  backwards.  —  and  the  subtle  dis- 

O  '  — —  / 

integration  of  the  taste  of  children  by  bad  songs 
results  inevitably  in  indifference  to  good  music 
in  later  life.  The  road  branches  here;  one  leads 
the  way  we  know  too  well,  the  other  leads  to 
a  real  love  of  fine  music,  to  a  real  happiness 
in  it,  and  to  a  real  respect  for  it.  Let  me  say, 
also,  that  children  love  good  songs,  and  that, 
as  a  part  of  their  natural  or  normal  endow- 
ment, they  possess  in  this  respect,  and  to  a 
remarkable  degree,  that  quality  which  we  ig- 
nobly call  "  taste."  (I  recall  an  old  Egyptian 
manuscript  in  the  Bodleian  Library  containing 
a  letter  which  ran  thus  :  "  Theon  to  his  father, 
Theon  —  Greeting.  It  was  a  fine  thing  that  you 
did  not  take  me  to  Alexandria  with  you.  Send 
me  a  lyre,  I  implore  you  !  If  you  don't,  I  won't 
eat  anything.  I  won't  drink  anything.  There!") 

[47] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

The  number  of  musical  nostrums  for  chil- 
dren is  legion,  and  I  have  no  desire  to  enu- 
merate them.  Their  effects  are  in  inverse  re- 
lation to  their  extensive  and  —  sometimes  — 
expensive  paraphernalia.  But  I  will  quote  a 
single  sentence  from  a  popular  song-book  for 
children  as  an  illustration  of  the  tendency 
which  they  represent :  "  Understanding  as  we 
do  the  innate  fondness  of  children  for  rich 
harmonies,  we  have  given  special  attention  to 
the  harmonization  of  the  melodies ;  and  al- 
though it  is  occasionally  necessary  for  children 
to  sing  without  accompaniment,  yet  such  a 
lack  is  to  be  deplored,  as  the  accompaniment 
often  serves  as  the  rhythmic  expression  of  the 
thought." 

The  foregoing  specimen  is  almost  a  com- 
pendium of  what  children's  songs  and  the 
teaching  of  them  should  not  be.  If  children 
are  fond  of  "  rich  "  harmonies,  the  fact  is  to 
be  regretted.  (I  do  not  believe  that  the  aver- 
age child  is.)  The  best  possible  thing  for  them, 
in  that  case,  would  be  to  hear  no  harmonies 
at  all  for  some  time,  but  to  sing  entirely  un- 
accompanied (just  as  you  would  deprive  them 
of  sweetmeats  if  they  had  been  made  ill  by 

[48] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

them);  special  attention  given  to  the  harmo- 
nization of  children's  songs  is  given  in  an  en- 
tire misconception  of  their  character  and  their 
uses ;  for  the  essence  of  a  child's  song  lies  in 
its  own  rhythmic  and  melodic  independence, 
and  if  it  depends  on  an  accompaniment  for  its 
rhythm,  it  is  by  just  so  much  a  poor  song. 
There  is  no  harm  in  a  simple  accompaniment 
to  a  folk-song,  but  in  teaching  them  to  children 
an  accompaniment  does  for  them  precisely 
what  we  want  them  to  do  for  themselves, 
namely,  reproduce  correctly  the  metre  and 
the  rhythm,  the  pitch  and  the  contour  of  the 
melody. 

Such  training  as  I  have  advocated,  if  carried 
on  through  early  childhood,  brings  with  it  a 
natural  desire  to  continue  singing  and  makes 
learning  to  sing  from  notes  much  easier  than 
it  would  otherwise  be.  The  capacity  to  sing 
music  at  sight  is  a  valuable  acquisition  for 
children,  for  it  enables  them  to  take  part  in 
choral  singing  and  provides  them  in  after  years 
with  a  delightful  means  of  access  to  some  of 
the  finest  music.  The  advantage  to  the  indi- 
vidual of  this  acquired  technique  is  that  it  is 
of  the  mind  and  not  of  the  muscles ;  it  does  not 

[49] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

desert  its  possessor  as  finger  technique  deserts 
the  player  who  ceases  to  practice.  To  sing 
part  songs  with  friends,  or  to  be  one  of  a  larger 
number  singing  a  composition  by  Bach  or  some 
other  great  composer,  in  which  each  singer  is 
contributing  to  reproduce  a  noble  work  of  art 
—  this,  in  itself,  is  a  highly  desirable  experi- 
ence. But  the  process  of  learning  to  sing  at 
sight  has  sometimes  led  far  away  from  true 
aesthetics  and  has  resulted  in  a  certain  debas- 
ing of  the  taste  through  singing  inferior  music. 
Vocal  exercises  for  sight  singing  are  necessary, 
and  we  can  accept  them  as  such,  for  they  do 
not  evoke  the  aesthetic  sense ;  but  bad  songs 
taught  to  illustrate  some  point  of  technique 
are  unnecessary  and  inexcusable. 

V.    THE  FALLACY  OF  THE  INEVITABLE 
PIANOFORTE  LESSON 

But  the  majority  of  the  children  who  have 
private  instruction  in  music  take  lessons  in 
pianoforte-playing.  It  has  become  a  custom  ; 
the  pianoforte  is  an  article  of  domestic  furni- 
ture (and  a  very  ugly  one);  pianoforte-playing 
is  a  sort  of  polish  to  a  cursory  education.  But 
the  reason  is  chiefly  found  in  the  fact  that  this 

[50] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

is  the  line  of  least  resistance :  there  are  plenty 
of  teachers  of  pianoforte-playing  but  few  teach- 
ers of  music,  so  parents  accept  that  which  is 
available. 

There  is  here  a  confusion  between  perform- 
ing music  and  understanding  it.  Learning  to 
perform  seems  (and  is)  a  tangible  asset —  some- 
thing definitely  accomplished;  while  merely 
learning  to  understand  music  seems  to  par- 
ents a  vague  process  likely  to  have  somewhat 
indefinite  results.  They  want  their  children  to 
produce  tangible  results  in  the  form  of"  pieces  " 
well  played.  Here  again  we  find  the  same  mis- 
conception. Music  in  this  sense  is  half  titilla- 
tion  of  the  ear,  and  half  finger-gymnastics. 
Such  music  instruction  consists  in  finding  the 
right  key,  black  or  white,  holding  the  hand  in 
a  correct  position,  —  patented  and  exploited 
as  the  only  correct  method,  —  putting  the 
thumb  under,  and  finally,  after  going  through 
an  almost  endless  series  of  evolutions  cover- 
ing many  years  and  carried  on  at  fearful  cost 
of  patience  to  every  one  within  hearing,  in 
dashing  about  over  the  glittering  keys  with  an 
abandonment  of  dexterity  positively  bewilder- 
ing. Nine  tenths  of  the  aspirants,  however, 

[5-  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

fall  by  the  wayside  and  some  time  later  look 
back  grimly  on  a  long  procession  of  endless 
hours  almost  wasted.  One  pictures  to  one's 
self  a  little  girl  of  seven  or  eight  seated  before 
that  ponderous  and  portentous  mass  of  iron, 
steel,  wood,  wires,  and  hammers  which  we  call 
a  "  pianoforte  "  (sixty  pounds  of  tender,  deli- 
cate humanity  trying  to  express  itself  through 
a  solid  ton),  her  legs  dangling  uncomfortably 
in  space,  her  little  fingers  trying  painfully  to 
find  the  right  key,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
keep  in  a  correct  position,  struggling  hard  the 
while  to  relate  together  two  strange  things,  a 
curious  black  dot  on  a  page  and  an  ivory  key 
two  feet  below  it,  for  neither  of  which  she  feels 
much  affection.  And  then  one  pictures  to  one's 
self  the  same  child  at  its  mother's  knee,  or  with 
other  children,  singing  with  joy  and  delight  a 
beautiful  song. 

I  do  not  advocate  the  abolishment  of  piano- 
forte-teaching to  children,  but  I  do  advocate 
the  exercise  of  some  discrimination  in  regard 
to  it,  and  particularly  I  insist  that  it  should 
not  be  begun  until  the  child  has  sung  beauti- 
ful songs  for  several  years  and  has  developed 
thereby  its  musical  instincts,  —  and  even  then 

[5*] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

only  when  a  child  possesses  a  certain  amount 
of  that  physical  coordination  which  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  playing  the  pianoforte.  For 
pianoforte-playing  ,is__by.  no  means  a  su re 
method  of  developing  the  musical  instinct  in 
children.  In  the  first  place  it  lacks  the  inti- 
macy  of  singing,  and  in  the  second  place  the 
playing  itself  demands  the  greater  part  of  a 
child's  attention,  so  that  often  it  hardly  hears 
the  music  at  all.  Any  ^  m£tko&-o£  -teaching 
music  is,  of  course,  wrong  which  attempts  to 
substitute  technical  dexterity  for  music  itself. 
The  foregoing  is  not  typical  of  the  most  in- 
telligent instruction  in  pianoforte-playing,  for 
there  are  many  teachers  who  reason  these  mat- 
ters out,  and  there  are  some  parents  who  see 
them  clearly  enough  to  allow  such  teachers  a 
reasonable  latitude.  But  it  is  true  of  piano- 
forte-teaching in  general,  as  doubtless  almost 
every  one  of  our  readers  has  had  some  evi- 
dence. It  is  obvious  that  even  a  slight  capac- 
ity to  play  the  pianoforte  is  useful  and  de- 
lightful provided  one  plays  with  taste  and 
understanding,  for  one  gets  from  it  a  certain 
satisfaction  which  mere  listening  does  not  give. 
I  deplore  only  an  insistence  upon  playing  as 

[53  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

the  only  means  of  approach  to  music;  I  ques- 
tion the  wisdom  of  forcing  children  to  play 
who  are  not  qualified  to  do  so ;  and  I  think 
playing  should,  in  any  case,  be  postponed 
until  the  musical  faculties  are  awakened  by 
singing. 


It  is  doubtless  the  conventional  and  domes- 
tic character  of  the  pianoforte  that  leads  us  to 
train  our  children  to  play  upon  it  rather  than 
upon  the  violin.  The  pianoforte  is  available 
for  casual  music,  for  accompaniments  to  songs, 
for  dance  music,  and  so  forth.  The  violin  is, 
perhaps,  only  useful  to  one  person.  But  how 
much  more  intimate  it  is!  Tucked  under  the 
chin  it  becomes  almost  a  part  of  the  player  — 
as  the  sculls  used  to  be  to  the  Autocrat  when 
he  went  rowing.  The  tones  of  the  violin  are 
yours  and  have  to  be  evoked  through  your 
own  patient  effort;  the  pianoforte  stands  glis- 
tening and  repellent,  almost  impervious  to 
your  personality.  I  would  have  children  taught 
to  play  the  violin,  or  violoncello  in  preference 
to  the  pianoforte,  and  I  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  we  shall  train  our  young  people  to  play 
other  orchestral  instruments  as  well.  This  is 
being  successfully  done  even  now  in  the  public 

[54] 


Music  FOR   CHILDREN 

schools.  My  own  observation  leads  me  to  be- 
lieve that  talent  for  pianotorte-playmg  is  quite 
rare,  and  that  the  average  child  is  more  likely 
to  be  able  to  play  the  violin.  What  more  de- 
lightful than  a  quiet  evening  of  chamber  music 
in  a  small  room,  young  and  old  playing  to- 
gether? Each  person  has  his  own  interesting 
part  to  play.  Each  expresses  himself  and  at 
the  same  time  conforms  to  the  ensemble.  This 
would  be  true  self-expression  under  the  best 
kind  of  discipline. 

It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  expect  to  stem 
the  tide  of  bad  pianoforte  music.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  the  home  influence  counts  for 
much.  Is  it  not  the  duty  of  parents  to  satisfy 
themselves  that  the  teacher  of  music  is  giving 
their  children  the  best  and  nothing  else  ?  The 
teaching  of  music  in  this  country  has  suffered 
enormously  through  being  detached  from  the 
highest  professional  standards,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  professional  standard,  suffers 
in  being  disconnected  from  the  common  life 
and  thought.  In  other  words,  anybody  who 
plays  the  pianoforte  a  little  can  set  up  in  busi- 
ness as  a  teacher,  while,  at  the  same  time,  the 
highly  qualified  professional  teacher  often  for- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

gets  that  he  is  dealing  with  a  human  being 
who  wants  to  understand  music  and  whose 
happiness  in  dealing  with  it  must  ultimately 
depend  on  that  understanding. 

When  children  show  an  aptitude  for  play- 
ing the  pianoforte  there  exists  still  the  impor- 
tant question  of  developing  their  taste.  Play- 
ing loses  much  of  its  value  if  there  is  any  lack 
of  musical  taste  and  judgment  on  the  part 
of  the  teacher.  An  examination  of  the  pro- 
grammes of  what  are  called  "pupils'  recitals" 
will  reveal  how  lax  some  teachers  are  in  this 
respect.  There  is  no  excuse  whatever  for  giv- 
ing children  poor  music  to  play,  for  there  is 
plenty  of  good  music  to  be  had  and  they  can 
be  taught  to  like  it  —  but  the  teacher  must  like 
it  also.  Children  are  quick  to  discover  a  pre- 
tense of  liking,  and  it  is  difficult  to  stimulate 
in  them  a  love  for  something  which  you  do 
not  love  yourself. 

VI.    THE  REAL  GOAL 

These  questions  now  inevitably  arise :  "  How 
can  children  be  taught  music  itself?"  "By 
what  process  is  it  possible  for  them  to  become 
musical  ?  "  Obviously  through  personal  expe- 

~ 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

rience_and  contact  with  good  music,  and  with 
good  music  only,  first  by  singing  beautiful 
songs  to  train  the  ear  and  awaken  the  taste, 
second  by  learning  how  to  listen  intelligently, 
and  third  (if  qualified  to  do  so)  by  learning  to 
play  good  music  on  some  instrument.  Intelli- 
gent listening  to  music  is  obviously  such  lis- 
tening as  comprises  a  complete  absorption  of 
all  the  elements  in  the  music  itself.  It  is  not 
enough  to  enjoy  the  "  tune"  alone,  for  melody 
is  only  one  means  of  expression.  The  listener 
must  be  alive  to  metric  and  rhythmic  forms, 
to  melodies  combined  in  what  is  called  "coun- 
terpoint," to  that  disposition  of  the  various 
themes,  harmonies,  and  so  forth,  which  consti- 
tutes form  in  music.  The  groups  of  fives,  for 
example,  which  persist  throughout  the  second 
movement  of  Tschaikovslcy's  "  Pathetique 
Symphony  "  constitute  its  salient  quality  ;  the 
steady,  solemn  tread  in  the  rhythm  of  the  slow 
movement  of  Beethoven's  Seventh  Symphony 
defines  the  character  of  that  piece ;  the  weav- 
ing of  the  separate,  individual  parts  in  a  compo- 
sition by  Bach  is  his  chief  means  of  expression, 
and  his  music  is  unintelligible  to  many  people 
because  they  are  incapable  of  answering  to  so 

[57] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

complex  an  idiom;  the  latitude  in  melody 
itself  is,  also,  very  great,  and  one  needs  con- 
stant experience  of  the  melodic  line  before  one 
can  see  the  beauty  in  the  more  profound  melo- 
dies of  Bach,  Beethoven,  and  Brahms. 

What  we  are  seeking  to  do  is  to  make  our- 
selves complementary  to  the  music.  We  need 
to  see  that  aesthetic  pleasure  is  not  by  any 
means  entirely  of  the  senses,  but  rather  of 
the  imagination  through  training  of  the  feel- 
ings and  the  mind.  We  want  our  listeners  to 
assimilate  all  the  elements  in  a  piece  of  music 
and  then  to  re-create  it  in  the  imagination.  It 
is  the  office  of  art  to  create  beauty  in  such 
perfect  form  as  shall  make  us  reflect  upon  it. 

This  principle  applies,  of  course,  to  the  ap- 
preciation of  any  artistic  object  whatsoever. 
One  cannot  appreciate  Whistler's  portrait  of 
his  mother  by  merely  realizing  that  the  subject 
looks  like  a  typical  Victorian  dame,  any  more 
than  one  can  appreciate  Whitman's  "  To 
the  Man-of- War- Bird  "  by  locating  Senegal. 
Whistler's  idea  is  expressed  through  composi- 
tion, drawing,  and  color,  and  each  of  these 
qualities  has  a  subtlety  of  its  own  ;  the  pose 
of  the  figure  is  a  thing  of  beauty  in  itself;  the 

[58] 


Music  FOR  CHILDREN 

edge  of  the  picture-frame  just  showing  on  the 
wall,  the  arrangement  of  curves  and  spots  on 
the  curtain,  the  tone  of  the  whole  canvas  — 
all  these  make  the  picture  what  it  is,  and  all 
these  we  must  comprehend  and  take  delight 
in.  Whitman's  poem  is  a  thing  of  space  and 
freedom  ;  the  sky  is  the  wild  bird's  cradle,  man 
is  "  a  speck,  a  point  on  the  world's  floating 
vast";  the  poet's  imagination  ranges  through 
the  whole  created  universe  and  flashes  back 
over  vast  reaches  of  time  as  if  to  incarnate  again 
man  in  the  bird.  So  this  music,  which  reaches 
our  consciousness  through  rhythms,  melodies, 
and  harmonies,  through  form  and  style,  through 
the  delicate  filigree  of  violins,  or  the  trium- 
phant blare  of  horns ;  which  says  unutterable 
things  by  means  of  silence  ;  which  means  noth- 
ing and  yet  means  everything,  —  this  Ariel  of 
the  arts,  —  this,  in  all  its  quality,  must  find  echo 
within  us. 

Observation,  discrimination,  reflection  ;  cul- 
tivating the  memory  for  musical  phrases  and  ' 
melodies,  disciplining  the  senses,  enlarging  the 
scope  of  the  imagination,  nurturing  the  sense 
of  beauty  —  these  are  the  means  and  the  ob- 
jects of  musical  education  for  children.  By 

[  59] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

such  a  process  we  attain  in  some  measure  to 
that  joy  which  is  one  of  the  chief  objects  of 
art,  and  of  which  our  present  situation  almost 
completely  deprives  us. 

So  let  me  say  finally  that  I  wage  war  here 
against  patent  nostrums,  against  enforced  and 
joyless  music-teaching,  against  the  develop- 
ment of  technical  proficiency  without  taste  or 
understanding;  and  that  I  uphold  here  a  pro- 
cess of  musical  education  which  has  for  its  ob- 
ject "  being  musical,"  and  which  takes  into  its 
fold  every  child,  boy  or  girl,  and  keeps  them 
there  as  man  and  woman. 


CHAPTER  III 

PUBLIC   SCHOOL   MUSIC 

i 

I.    IDEALS  OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  EDUCATION 

IT  is  characteristic  of  our  compliance  in  mat- 
ters educational  that  of  late  years  we  have  seen 
subject  after  subject  added  to  the  curricula  of 
our  public  schools,  and  have  cheerfully  voted 
money  for  them,  without  having  much  con- 
ception of  their  value  or  of  the  results  attained 
by  introducing  them.  Education  is  our  shib- 
boleth, our  formula.  The  school  diploma  and 
the  college  degree  constitute  our  new  baptism 
of  conformity.  We  do  not  question  their  au- 
thority or  their  efficacy.  They  absolve  us.  Our 
public  schools  have  become  experimental  sta- 
tions for  the  testing  of  theories,  until  the  de- 
mand for  more  and  more  specialization  has 
resulted  in  an  overcrowding  of  the  curricula 
and  a  consequent  superficiality  in  the  teaching. 
"That  any  man  should  die  ignorant  who  is 
capable  of  knowledge,  that  I  call  a  tragedy," 
says  Carlyle.  But  there  is  a  greater  tragedy 
still,  which  is  that  our  capability  for  knowl- 
[61  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

edge  may  be  so  overburdened  by  irrelevant 
information  that  it  becomes  worthless  to  us. 
We  study  everything  and  we  know  nothing. 
Our  schools  become  detached  from  the  reali- 
ties of  life  because  we  pursue  so  diligently  the 
semblance  of  those  realities. 

Our  objective  is  definitely  practical.  We  ex- 
pect education  to  fit  boys  and  girls  to  cope 
successfully  with  the  everyday  affairs  of  life, 
we  frown  on  anything  that  savors  of  the  un- 
practical, and  we  instinctively  distrust  the  word 
"  beauty."  We  are  like  Mime  who  thoughtthat 
courage  lay  in  the  sword  itself.  We,  too,  have 
the  pieces  of  the  broken  blade,  and  they  are  as 
useless  to  us  as  they  were  to  him.  Of  what 
avail  all  this  information  which  we  so  slowly 
and  painfully  acquire?  Can  it  be  put  together 
Mime-fashion  ?  Or  is  there  something  that 
can  fuse  it?  Has  it  not  all  a  common  source, 
and  is  not  that  source  in  nature?  "Every  ob- 
ject has  its  roots  in  central  nature  and  may  be 
exhibited  to  us  so  as  to  represent  the  world." 
This  unity  in  things,  to  which  Emerson  refers, 
gives  order  and  sequence  to  all  objects,  per- 
sons, and  ideas ;  they  become  significant  and 
potent,  for  we  see  them  as  they  really  are.  No 

[  6*] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

one  can  be  said  to  be  educated  who  fails  to  ap- 
prehend that  unification  of  all  matter,  of  all 
thought,  of  all  sensation  —  that  harmony  in 
things  which  brings  into  relation  a  speck  of 
dust  and  a  star,  the  individual  and  the  cosmos. 
The  very  thing  we  fear  most  in  education  is 
the  one  thing  that  tempers  all  the  others  — 
namely,  beauty.  For  in  education,  as  in  every- 
thing else,  beauty  means  sequence,  order,  and 
harmony  ;  beauty  relates  things  to  each  other, 
multiplies  arithmetic  by  geography,  objects  by 
sounds,  acts  by  feelings.  If  there  were  a  world 
with  one  human  being  in  it,  and  only  one,  his 
sweetest,  gentlest,  and  most  inevitably  perfect 
act  would  be  to  leap  into  the  mother  sea  and 
rejoin  nature.  An  isolated  fact  or  an  unre- 
lated piece  of  information  only  differs  in  this 
respect  from  the  human  being  in  that  it  never 
was  alive. 

We  pay  lip  service  to  beauty.  We  study 
poetry,  but  we  deal  chiefly  with  poets  —  with 
their  being  born  and  their  dying,  with  the 
shell  of  them,  whereas  the  poet  is  only  valu- 
able for  what  beauty  he  brings  us.  We  even 
try  to  extract  morals  from  him,  or  to  find  in 
him  codes  of  conduct,  philosophies,  and  the 

[63] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

like,  forgetting  Swinburne's  fine  saying  that 
"There  are  pulpits  enough  for  all  preachers  in 
prose  ;  the  business  of  verse  writing  is  hardly 
to  express  convictions ;  and  if  some  poetry,  not 
without  merit  of  its  kind,  has  at  times  dealt 
with  dogmatic  morality,  it  is  all  the  worse  and 
all  the  weaker  for  that."  One  of  the  prime  ob- 
jects of  the  study  of  English  should  be  to  in- 
still in  the  student  a  love  of  English  poetry. 
But  we  are  afraid  of  it ;  we  distrust  it,  or  we 
think  it  effeminate.  (It  means  nothing  that  we 
are  now  praising  "free  verse,"  for  we  are  only 
interested  in  the  first  half  of  the  term,  and  that 
is  not  applicable  to  poetry,  since  no  verse 
worth  having  ever  has  been  or  can  be  free. 
We  nibble.) 

But  poetry  does,  at  least,  express  itself  in 
words,  and  words  can  be  punctuated,  and 
spelled,  and  parsed  and  scanned,  and,  above 
all,  words  provide  material  for  examinations. 
You  cannot  do  any  of  these  things  with  mu- 
sic, for  it  consists  in  mere  sounds  meaning 
nothing  that  any  one  can  find  out.  We  do  allow 
music  to  enter  a  corner  of  our  educational 
sanctuary,  and  then  we  slam  the  door  on  her 
and  leave  her  there  until  June  when  we  expect 

[64] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

her  to  come  forth  garlanded  for  the  graduation 
exercises.  The  taxpayer  attends  these  exercises 
and  listens  to  the  singing  of  the  children  in 
that  complacent  mood  which  he  commonly  as- 
sumes when  he  thinks  he  is  getting  his  money's 
worth,  although  he  very  likely  knows  that  his 
own  public  school  education  in  music  did  noth- 
ing whatever  for  him. 

What  are  the  claims  of  music  as  a  means 
of  educating  the  young  ?  To  some  educa- 
tional administrators  it  seems  to  have  almost 
no  justification.  "  What  can  be  accomplished 
by  it  ? "  they  ask.  "  Singing  is  not  necessary  as 
a  factor  in  life."  "  Music  is  of  little  importance 
in  a  work-a-day  world."  So  argue  the  school 
men  who  want  "  results  "  as  they  call  them. 
But -the  real.o.bjj£ctDf_  education  should  be  first 
to  make  human  beings  capable  of  hearing 
and  seeing  intelligently,  and  of  using  their 
hands  skillfully,  and  then  to  train  the  mind 
so  that  it  can  receive  and  assimilate  knowledge 
and  turn  it  into  wisdom.  There  are  a  few  school 

p~     ,  ""*—«__ f^.MiMflHMK       '"  '  ' 

authorities  who  see  music  as  an  important  part 
of  such  education,  but  most  of  them — being 
in  themselves  unconscious  of  its  power  and 
of  its  value  —  only  accept  it  because  other 


Music  AND  LIFE 

people  similarly  placed  have  done  so,  or  as  a 
relief  from  other  studies,  or  as  a  means  of  en- 
livening public  school  exhibitions.  That  there 
is  something  in  our  natures  which  music  ful- 
fills and  satisfies ;  that  great  men  have  given 
expression  to  their  ideas  through  it ;  that  the 
understanding  and  appreciation  of  their  utter- 
ances depends  on  the  training  of  the  ear  and 
of  the  imagination,  and  that,  when  this  train- 
ing has  been  completed,  a  man  or  woman  has 
access  to  a  whole  world  of  beauty  —  all  this 
the  average  school  man  does  not  see.  Nor  can 
he  be  expected  to  see  it,  for  he  has  never  ex- 
perienced it  in  himself.  But  he  should  be  con- 
vinced by  the  phenomena  ;  by  the  large  num- 
ber of  people  who  derive  enjoyment  and 
stimulation  from  great  music ;  by  the  per- 
sistence of  the  love  for  it ;  even,  perhaps,  by 
the  colossal  sums  spent  on  it.  But  he  cannot 
dispel  his  distrust  of  a  study  whose  results  are 
illusive;  he  often  sees  it  badly  administered, 
and  is  unable  to  remedy  the  condition,  so  he 
leaves  it  to  its  fate.  The  one  medium  of  hu- 
man expression  that  is  universal,  that  tran- 
scends language,  that  knows  no  distinctions 
save  such  as  it  seeks  out  itself  in  our  own 
[66] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

souls ;  that  speaks  to  the  tiniest  child  and  to 
his  grandfather  in  common  terms ;  that  does 
not  deal  in  beliefs,  or  in  dogma,  or  in  events, 
or  things,  or  persons,  or  localities  —  this  he 
suspects  !  Put  all  this  on  his  educational  scales  ; 
a  few  lessons  in  arithmetic  will  outweigh  it. 
The  passion  for  categorical  facts,  arranged  in 
methodical  sequence  term  by  term,  year  by 
year,  and  culminating  in  a  sky-rocket  burst, 
every  fact  blazing  up  separately  for  an  instant 
as  though  it  really  were  alive,  and  then  going 
out  while  the  charred  embers  fall  far  apart  on 
a  patient  earth  —  this  is  called  Education  ! 
But  this  passion  is  almost  ineradicable  —  is, 
indeed,  one  of  the  most  common  of  human 
failings.  It  is  what  is  called  in  these  days 
"efficiency":  that  is,  a  sort  of  nose-on-the- 
grindstone  persistency  in  detail  entirely  obliv- 
ious of  those  larger  aspects  of  any  case  which 
really  decide  its  destiny.  Systems,  categories, 
precedents;  these  are  safe.  Why  wander  from 
beaten  paths?  Individual  aspiration,  a  desire 
for  beauty  —  these  are  dangerous.  We  have 
ceased  memorizing  the  names  of  rivers,  or 
the  capitals  of  Patagonia  and  Bolivia,  but  we 
still  cling  tightly  to  "useful"  subjects,  and 

[67] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

we  still  test  our  education  by  weighing  it  in 
June. 

I  propose,  then,  first,  to  examine  the  claims 
of  music  as  a  subject  to  be  taught  in  our  pub- 
lic schools ;  second,  to  examine  into  prevail- 
ing methods  of  teaching  it ;  third,  to  investi- 
gate the  results  now  obtained ;  and  finally,  to 
suggest  ways  of  bettering  our  situation. 


II.    THE  VALUE  OF  MUSIC  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 
EDUCATION 

In  the  last  chapter  I  referred  to  the  qualities 
in  music  which  make  it  especially  valuable  fof 
children,  and  what  I  said  there  applies  with  equal 
or  even  greater  force  here.  Any  one  who  has 
compared  town  or  city  life  in  this  country  and 
in  Europe,  and  has  seen  what  a  pleasure,  and 
what  a  civilizing  influence  music  may  become 
when  it  is  properly  taught  in  childhood,  must 
realize  how  great  a  loss  our  people  sustain  by 
the  neglect  of  singing.  We  are  only  now  begin- 
ning to  realize  how  long  it  takes  to  weld  a  diverse 
people  into  one  by  means  of  an  intellectual 
conception  of  nationality.  The  thin  bond  of 
self-interest,  the  advantage  of  "getting  on"  in 
[68] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

the  world  —  these  keep  us  together  in  ordi- 
nary times,  but  in  a  great  crisis  these  bonds 
break.  The  leaven  of  sentiment  is  needed.  We 
want  a  common  sympathy;  we  want  above 
all  some  means  of  expression  for  that  sympa- 
thy. There  have  been  of  late  numerous  great 
meetings  at  which  the  feelings  of  men  and 
women  have  expended  themselves  in  shouts, 
in  cheers,  in  the  clapping  of  hands,  and  in 
other  inarticulate  methods  of  expressing  emo- 
tions. What  would  not  a  song  have  done  for 
these  thousands  —  a  song  they  all  knew 
and  loved?  Are  we  forever  to  be  dumb  ? 

Our  hope  is  in  the  children,  to  whom  music 
is  of  inestimable  value.  In  the  first  place  (as  I 
have  already  pointed  out)  music  supplies  the 
only  means  of  bringing  young  children  into 
actual  and  intimate  contact  with  beauty.  In 
the  kindergarten  or  in  the  early  grades  of  our 
public  schools  children  are  capable  of  singing, 
and  love  to  sing,  simple  songs  which,  within 
their  limited  scope,  are  quite  perfect,  whereas 
their  capacity  for  drawing,  or  for  appreciating 
forms  and  colors  is  comparatively  slight.  In 
music  childrenjjnd  a  natural  means  of  expres- 

n  for  that  inhprpnt-  qualify  of  i'Hea)jsm  whiqK 

[69] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

is  a^part  of  their  nature.  When  children  sing 
together  their  natures  are  disciplined  while 
each  child  at  the  same  time  expresses  its  own 
individuality.  Activity  of  ear,  eye,  and  mind 
together  tends  to  cultivate  quickness  of  de- 
cision and  accuracy  of  thinking.  In  the  matter 
of  rhythmic  coordination  alone  music  justifies 
itself.  Rhythmic  movements  to  music  have 
long  since  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  means 
of  mental  and  physical  development.  All  sorts 
of  interesting  and  stimulating  exercises  can  be 
used  in  connection  with  the  teaching  of  songs 
to  little  children,  and  any  one  who  has  ever 
watched  a  child's  development  through  intel- 
ligent instruction  in  singing  and  in  rhythmic 
exercises  must  have  realized  how  keen  its  per- 
ception becomes  and  how  valuable  to  its  gen- 
eral intelligence  the  training  is.  SOL,  impor- 
tant Jg_training  in  rhythmic  jmovement  that 
it  should  be  a  part,  not  only  of  all  musical 
education,  but  of  all  primary  education  every- 
where. 

Singing  beautiful  songs  prepares  children  by 
the  best  possible  means  for  an  intelligent  un- 
derstanding of  the  compositions  of  the  great 
masters  which,  for  lack  of  this  preparation, 

[70] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

many  adults  never  comprehend.  The  educa- 
tional administrator  who  denies  a  great  com- 
poser the  distinction  he  gives  to  a  great  writer 
is  going  against  the  testimony  of  generations 
of  cultivated  and  educated  people  all  over  the 
world,  and,  moreover,  is  tacitly  acknowledging 
that  he  believes  greatness  to  be  a  matter  of  mere 
outward  expression.  The  element  in  Shake- 
speare's writings,  for  example,  which  reveals  his 
greatness  is  the  same  element  that  reveals  Bee- 
thoven's—  namely,  an  imaginative,  beautiful 
and  true  concept  or  idea  of  human  life.  Bee- 
thoven is  as  true  as  Shakespeare.  The  same 
fancy,  the  same  daring,  the  same  grandeur,  the 
same  extravagance  of  imagination,  and  the  same 
fidelity  to  life  are  found  in  each.  That  one  uses 
words  and  the  other  mere  sounds  affects  the 
case  not  at  all,  or  if  at  all,  in  favor  of  music, 
since  these  elements  or  qualities  of  life  are 
expressed  more  directly  and  more  intensely  in 
music  than  in  words. 

Yes,  there  is  every  reason  for  giving  music 
a  real  place  in  the  curriculum  save  one,  and 
that  is  this :  you  cannot  give  an  examination 
in  it.  Fatal  defect !  No  A  +  or  A  -  for  the 
child  to  take  home  proudly  to  its  parents  ; 

[71  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

on  a  certain  day  at  a  certain  hour  y£u_cannot 
find  out  by  a  set  test  what,  of  the  beautiful 
thing  we  call  music,  a  child  has  in  its  heart  and 
soul.  The  result  you  hope  to  gain  consists 
chiefly  in  a  love  of  good  music,  and  a  joy  in 
singing  it  —  a  result  that  is  likely  to  affect  the 
happiness  of  the  child  all  its  life  long ;  the 
whole  tendency  of  singing  in  schools  has  been 
to  civilize  the  child,  to  make  it  happy,  and  to 
help  its  physical  and  mental  coordination  ;  yet 
you  deny  the  value  of  such  training,  you  re- 
fuse to  give  it  a  real  place  in  your  curriculum, 
you  call  it  a  fad  or  a  frill.  What  an  extraor- 
dinary attitude  for  an  educational  administra- 
tion to  assume  !  The  world  is,  then,  merely  a 
place  of  eating  and  drinking,  of  mechanical 
routine,  of  facts.  There  are  to  be  no  dreams; 
the  flowers  and  brooks  and  mountains,  the 
sky,  birds'  songs  and  the  whole  fantasy  of 
life  —  these  are  nothing.  Beautiful  objects  in 
which  the  eye  delights,  beautiful  sounds  that 
fill  the  soul  with  happiness  and  create  for  us 
a  perfect  world  of  our  own,  these  are  useless 
because  they  won't  submit  to  an  examina- 
tion in  June  and  can't  be  made  to  figure  in  a 
diploma.  How  many  young  people,  I  wonder, 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

graduate  from  our  institutions  of  learning  with 
nothing  but  a  diploma  ?  Would  it  not  be  of 
great  value  to  the  children  if  they  were  taught 
to  see  and  to  hear  vividly  and  intelligently,  to 
be  alive  to  all  beautiful  objects,  to  love  a  few 
beautiful  poems,  to  have  the  beginnings  of 
a  taste  for  literature,  to  be  able  to  sing  fine 
songs,  to  take  part  in  choral  singing,  and  to 
know  well  a  few  pieces  by  Mozart  or  Schu- 
bert ?  Do  not  all  great  things  establish  rela- 
tionship and  do  not  all  little  things  accentuate 
differences?  What  education  is  better  than 
that  which  unifies  the  individual  with  the  uni- 
versal ?  Is  not  this  whole  world  of  fine  litera- 
ture, painting,  sculpture,  and  music  in  the  very 
highest  sense,  then,  an  education  to  the  indi- 
vidual ? 

We  march  in  endless  file  along  a  hard-paved 
way  out  of  the  sun,  our  goal  a  place  where  use 
holds  sway.  To  reach  the  goal  and  begin  our 
labors  under  the  lash,  catching  a  glimpse  only 
now  and  then  of  stars,  of  flowers,  of  brooks, 
of  green  fields  —  only  a  glimpse,  for  use  holds 
us  fast.  After  a  time  we  forget  them  altogether 
as  use  fastens  its  grip  upon  us  more  securely. 
We  plod  onward,  machine-like,  until  all  sense 

[73] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  beauty  is  dead,  and  the  world  is  a  tread- 
mill of  money-getting  and  of  trivial  pleasures. 
Then  our  blindness  reacts  on  our  children. 
We  have  forgotten  the  impulse  of  our  child- 
hood. The  love  for  beautiful  things  has  left 
us,  and  we  have  no  longer  a  sense  of  their 
value.  Must  our  children  continue  to  suffer 
for  this?  Must  they,  too,  become  the  slaves 
of  use  ? 

III.    FALSE  METHODS  OF  TEACHING 

That  compliance  of  ours  to  which  I  have 
referred  is  nowhere  more  evident  than  in  the 
large  sums  we  spend  on  the  teaching  of  music, 
and  in  our  ignorance  of  the  results.  School 
boards  and  school  superintendents  usually  pos- 
sess little  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  have 
no  means  of  knowing  the  quality  and  the  effect 
of  music  teaching  save  by  such  evidences  as 
are  supplied  by  the  singing  of  the  children  at 
the  end  of  the  school  year.  No  one  asks  what 
the  one  thousand  or  the  fifty  thousand  dollars 
spent  by  the  school  board  earns.  The  money 
is  appropriated  and  expended  on  salaries,  mu- 
sic books,  etc.,  and  there  the  matter  is  left 
hanging,  as  it  were,  in  the  air,  and  not  to  be 

[74] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

heard  from  again  until  the  end  of  the  school 
year.  No  committee  supervises  the  selection 
of  the  books  or  the  methods  of  teaching.  The 
supervisor  is  in  autocratic  control.  The  system 
is  like  an  inverted  pyramid  propped  up  by  an 
occasional  show  of  singing,  by  the  fallacious 
excuse  that  singing  is  a  relaxation  after  bur- 
densome tasks  (fallacious  because  such  relaxa- 
tion by  singing  could  be  carried  on  without 
the  expensive  paraphernalia  of  a  school  music 
system),  but  most  of  all  supported  and  fostered 
by  the  equally  fallacious  belief  that  reading 
music  "at  sight,"  so  called,  is  an  end  in  itself. 
So  completely  divorced  is  it  from  such  con- 
trol as  is  exercised  over  other  subjects  that  it 
has  become  the  prey  of  theorists  who  have 
accumulated  around  it  a  mass  of  pedagogical 
paraphernalia  quite  unknown  in  any  other 
form  of  music  teaching,  and  essentially  arti- 
ficial and  encumbering. 

I  have  attended  conventions  of  teachers 
where  all  the  interest  centered  in  pedagogical 
methods,  and  in  the  discussions  of  artificial 
terms  and  theories.  I  have  met  teachers  who 
say  they  discourage  the  children  from  singing 
—  because  it  ruins  their  voices !  and  who  con- 

[75] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

fine  their  instruction  to  the  theory  of  music. 
The  fetish  of  sight-singing  has  cast  its  blight 
over  the  teaching  of  little  children  so  that  in- 
stead of  letting  them  sing  by  ear  simple  and 
beautiful  songs,  —  which  nearly  every  child 
loves  to  do,  —  they  are  taught  at  the  age  of 
five  or  six  years  the  mysteries  of  intervals, 
etc.  And  since  the  time  divisions  of  music 
present  difficulties  too  great  for  their  young 
minds,  the  vertical  measure  lines  are  discarded, 
thus  obliterating  the  accents  and  taking  away 
from  music  one  of  its  most  fundamental  ele- 
ments. This  makes  necessary  the  substitution 
of  purely  empirical  terms  to  describe  the  time 
values  of  quarter  notes,  eighth  notes,  and 
so  forth,  such  as  "type  one,"  "type  two";  or 
artificial  syllabic  terms  are  piled  up  one  upon 
another  until  such  a  monstrosity  as  tafate-fetifi 
results. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  long  experience  of  music 
through  singing  should  precede  any  instruc- 
tion as  to  the  time  values  of  notes,  and  that  if 
a  child  has  sung  many  times  by  ear  the  sounds 
represented  by  these  artificial  terms,  and  has 
continued  to  sing  by  ear  for  two  years  or  more, 
and  has  stored  up  a  series  of  musical  impres- 

[76] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

sions  that  have  developed  its  musical  taste  and 
instinct,  and  has  mastered  the  rudiments  of 
numbers,  the  teaching  of  the  notes  becomes  a 
much  simpler  and  more  natural  process,  in- 
volving no  other  terms  than  those  ordinarily 
in  use  in  music.  You  can  then  call  a  note  by 
its  generally  accepted  name  —  "half,"  "quar- 
ter," "  eighth,"  etc. 

How  did  this  all  come  about?  Primarily 
through  the  indifference  of  the  public,  and 
through  the  incapability  of  the  school  authori- 
ties to  control  the  teaching.  Never  having  been 
so  educated  in  music  as  to  realize  that  it  con- 
tains the  highest  kind  of  educational  possi- 
bilities, parents  take  little  interest  in  the  music 
their  children  learn  in  school.  The  connection 
between  music  and  life  is  lost.  The  supervisor 
mayr  or  may  not  be  a  good  musician ;  he  majT 
be  entirely  indifferent  to  the  higher  possibil- 
ities of  music  as  a  factor  in  education ;  his  taste 
may  never  have  been  properly  formed.  He  is 
likely  to  be  helpless  even  though  he  feels  the 
need  of  reform  because  he  needs  music  books, 
and  has  to  take  what  he  can  buy.  The  making 
of  music  books  for  schools  has  become  too 
much  a  matter  of  commercial  competition,  and 

[77] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

particularly  of  commercial  propaganda,  and 
this  latter  condition  is  fostered  by  the  summer 
schools  for  supervisors  controlled  and  operated 
by  the  publishers  of  school  music  books.  The 
result  of  all  this  is  that  a  cumbersome  peda- 
gogical system  has  become  firmly  entrenched 
in  many  American  towns  and  cities. 

One  of .the  greatest  .difficulties  connected 
with  public  school  music  teaching  is  the  ina- 
bility of  some  of  the  grade  teachers  to  teach 
music..  ~Xhe  daily  lesson  is  given  by  her.  The 
music  teacher  visits  each  room  once  in  two, 
three,  or  even  four  weeks.  It  is  not  necessa- 
rily the  grade  teacher's  fault  if  she  cannot  teach 
music  well,  because  the  training  given  her  in 
the  grade  schools  and  normal  school  may  have 
been  quite  inadequate.  But  teach  music  she 
must — as  a  part  of  her  regular  duties.  My 
own  observation  leads  me  to  believe  that  a 
good  many  grade  teachers  are  capable  of  doing 
this  work  well,  that  few  do  it  as  well  as  they 
might  do  if  they  were  given  more  training,  and 
that  some  teach  so  badly  that  it  results  in  more 
harm  than  good.  In  any  case  I  am  opposed 
to  any  transference  of  the  daily  lesson  from  the 
grade  teachers  to  an  expert,  not  because  I  think 

[78] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

the  expert  would  not  do  it  in  some  ways  better, 
but  because  it  would  mean  a  very  large  in- 
crease in  the  expense  of  our  schools  and  be- 
cause I  believe  that  only  a  few  grade  teachers 
areJuDLcap.able  under  proper  training  of  giving 
a  satisfactory  music  lesson,  Furthermore,  I 
believe  in  keeping  the  music  lesson  as  a  bond 
of  sympathy  between  the  grade  teacher  and 
the  children.  Singing  is  an  entirely  natural  art 
for  any  human  being  who  begins  it  in  child- 
hood and  pursues  it  through  youth.  I  look 
forward  to  the  day  when  we  shall  all  sing.  I 
object  to  the  displacement  of  the  grade  teacher 
in  the  one  function  of  school  life  which  is 
intimate,  free,  and  beautiful,  in  which  facts, 
members,  places,  events,  names  are  forgotten, 
and  in  which  the  spirit  of  each  child  issues 
forth  under  the  discipline  of  beauty.  (I  place 
these  words  in  italics  because  I  am  constantly 
being  told  that  the  great  thing  in  the  educa- 
tion of  children  is  to  give  them  self-expression  ; 
to  which  I  reply  that  self-expression  except 
under  discipline  —  using  the  word  in  its  larger 
sense  —  has  never  helped  either  the  individual 
or  the  race.)  We  must  look  to  the  normal 
schools  for  this  improvement  in  the  ability 

[79] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  our  teachers  to  teach  music,  and  the  normal 
schools,  in  turn,  must  expect  our  high  schools 
to  send  forth  their  graduates,  properly  taught 
in  music,  so  that  normal  schools  will  not  have 
to  spend  time  (as  they  often  do  now)  sup- 
plementing the  imperfections  of  the  earlier 
training. 

At  present  we  are  moving  in  a  vicious  circle. 
Many  of  our  normal  schools  still  preserve 
something  of  that  artificial  pedagogy  to  which 
I  have  referred,  and  still  send  out  teachers  who 
are,  humanly  speaking,  ill-fitted  to  lead  the  chil- 
dren in  music.  (I  refer  to  the  human  element 
in  the  matter  because  it  is  impossible  to  teach 
music  properly  if  you  have  not  had  experience 
with  the  best  of  it,  and  if  you  do  not  love  the 
best  more  than  any  other.  So  long  as  our  nor- 
mal schools  lay  too  great  stress  on  the  tech- 
nique of  teaching  music  at  the  expense  of  the 
greater  thing,  just  so  long  will  our  schools 
suffer.  And  it  is  easily  possible  for  the  normal 
school  authorities  to  be  deceived  as  to  what  is 
the  best  music,  as  well  as  by  a  brave  showing 
of  musical  performance.)  The  real  failure  in 
the  administration  of  music  is  due  to  a  false 
ideal.  And  it  is  in  this  mistakenJjieaLor  pur- 
[  80] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

pose  that  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter  lies. 
Nearly  the  whole  stress  of  teaching  is  laid  on 
expert  sight-reading  nfmnsir.  Go  into  a  school- 

TV         "  ••    •        P  — O 

room  with  a  supervisor  to  hear  his  class  sing 
and  he  will  almost  invariably  exhibit  to  you 
with  pride  the  capacity  of  the  children  to  sing 
at  sight.  He  will  ask  you  to  put  something 
impromptu  on  the  blackboard  as  a  test  of 
their  proficiency.  He  will  exhibit  to  you  classes 
of  very  young  children  who  have  already  learned 
to  read  notes  and  who  can  sing  all  sorts  of 
simple  exercises  from  the  staff. 

What  is  meant  by  the  term  "  sight-singing  "  ? 
It  means,  if  it  means  anything,  that  a  person 
shall  be  able  to  sing  correctly  at  the  first  trial 
his  part  in  any  piece  of  vocal  music  which  he 
has  never  seen  or  heard  before.  And  this, 
which  we  spend  our  money  for,  is  an  entirely 
artificial  attainment,  since  in  real  life  we  are  al- 
most never  required  to  do  it.  "  Sight-singing  " 
has  become  a  shibboleth.  What  we  want  is  a 
reasonable  capacity  for  reading  music,  for  that 
is  all  we  are  called  upon  to  do  in  actual  life. 
In  choral  societies  and  choirs  all  over  this  coun- 
try the  number  of  singers  who  can  read  music 
at  sight  is  negligible,  and  there  is  probably  not 
[8.  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

one  of  them  who  could  master  at  once  the  in- 
tricacies of  modern  choral  writing.  Let  us  then 
teach  children  to  read  music  by  giving  them 
as  many  trials  as  is  necessary,  and  let  them 
gradually  acquire  such  a  familiarity  with  inter- 
vals and  with  rhythmic  figures  as  will  make  it 
possible  for  them  to  sing  with  other  people, 
and  enjoy  doing  so.  We  shall  then  get  rid  of 
an  artificial  ideal  and  have  just  so  much  more 
time  in  which  to  cultivate  music  for  its  own 
sake.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  the  children  in  our  publicschools  never 
attain  to  that  expertness  which  is  the  present 
objective  of  the  teaching.  So  we  have  a  double 
failure — in  ideal  and  in  practice.  (This  is  not 
the  place  for  a  discussion  of  the  various  meth- 
ods of  teaching  sight-singing.  The  method 
commonly  used  in  this  country  is  derived  from 
English  practice  and  we  have  ignored  the  much 
more  accurate  and  scientific  systems  of  France 
and  Germany.) 

The  supervisor,  who  takes  so  much  pride 
in  the  capacity  of  his  pupils  to  sing  at  sight, 
ought  to  be  chiefly  interested  in  something 
much  more  important — namely,  their  ability 
to  sing  a  beautiful  piece  of  music  and  particu- 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

larly  their  joy  in  doing  so,  for  that  is  the  only 
real  justification  for  his  presence  there.  Many 
supervisors  seem  to  have  almost  forgotten  that 
music  is  a  thing  of  beauty  and  that  the  only 
way  to  keep  it  alive  in  a  child's  heart  is  to 
teach  the  child  to  sing  beautiful  songs.  Con- 
stant contact  with  inferior  songs  for  children 
may,  indeed,  have  so  affected  the  supervisor's 
taste  that  he  himself  can  no  longer  detect  the 
difference  between  good  and  bad. 

IV.    GOOD  OR  BAD  MUSIC? 

Foe.  eight  years,  then,  in  our  public  schools 
children  are  taught rr-  as  far  as  may  be  —  to 
sing  at  sight.  Is  there  a  fine  song  which  pre- 
sents a  certain  difficulty,  it  is  placed  in  the 
book  at  the  point  where  that  difficulty  arises, 
and  is  treated  as  a  sight-reading  test.  It  is 
subjected  to  analysis  as  to  its  melodic  progres- 
sions, each  of  which  is  taken  up  as  a  technical 
problem.  This  is  precisely  the  method  so 
often  and  so  fatally  used  in  connection  with 
poetry.  The  Skylark's  wings  are  clipped ; 
the  Grecian  Urn  becomes  an  archaeological 
specimen;  the  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes  a  date  in 
the  almanac. 

[83  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

This  brings  me  to  the  most  important  part 
of  the  whole  matter.  If  expert  sight-singing  is 
not  only  a  false  ideal,  but  one  impossible  of 
general  attainment  in  public  schools  under  the 
conditions  at  present  existing,  what  does  jus- 
tify our  expenditure  of  such  large  sums  of 
money  ?  The  sole  justification  for  it  is  to  bring 
children  to  love  the  best  music,  and  so  to  train 
their  taste  for  it  as  to  make  them  capable  of 
discriminating  between  good  and  bad.  Now  a 
thorough  test  of  the  children  in  the  kinder- 
garten or  the  lower  primary  grades  of  any  pub- 
lic school  anywhere  will  surely  reveal  that  such 
children  start  life  with  the  makings  of  good 
taste  in  music.  Nature  is  prodigal  here  — 
prodigal  and  faithful.  In  the  most  remote  vil- 
lages in  this  country,  in  purely  industrial  com- 
munities, among  the  poor  and  among  the  rich 
(both  having  forgotten),  children  love  good 
songs.  It  is  their  natural  inheritance.  No  ex- 
cess of  materialism  in  the  generations  affects  it 
in  the  least.  This  is  the  primitive  endowment ; 
deep  down  in  human  character  there  lies  a  har- 
mony of  adjustment  with  nature.  Overlay  it  as 
you  may  with  custom  or  habit ;  sully  it  with 
luxury;  it  still  persists,  for  without  it  human 

[84] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

•  f 

life  cannot  be.  This  idealistic  basis  of  human 
life,  which  is  never  destroyed,  appears  fresh 
and  unstained  in  children,  and  in  their  song  it 
bubbles  up  as  from  a  pure  spring.1 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  frequent  comment 
that  there  has  been  no  such  increase  in  choral 
singing  either  in  town  or  city  as  our  public 
school  music  teaching  should  lead  us  to  ex- 
pect. In  fact  the  countless  young  people  who 
graduate  from  our  schools  seem  to  make  almost 
no  impression  on  choral  singing.  It  still  re- 
mains the  least  of  our  musical  activities.  It  is 
as  difficult  as  ever  to  secure  people  who  care 
enough  for  the  practice  of  singing  to  come  to 
rehearsals.  Voluntary  choir  singing,  for  the 
pjeasure  to  be  derived  from  it,  is  rare.  Are"not 
our  public  schools  partly  responsible  for  this 
condition  ?  Is  not  that  na.tu.raj.  taste  and  love 
for  goocTmusic,  to  jvhich  I  have  just  referred, 

to  disa- 


1  A  certain  small  proportion  of  children  are  backward  in 
music,  but  the  possibility  of  teaching  them  to  sing  has  long 
since  been  satisfactorily  demonstrated.  They  need  special  at- 
tention which  it  is  difficult  to  give  in  public  schools.  They 
should,  I  think,  never  be  taken  from  their  seats  in  the  room 
and  placed  at  one  side,  but  should  be  asked  to  listen  to  the 
other  children,  and  occasionally  to  sing  with  them,  the  teacher 
standing  near  for  help  and  encouragement. 

[85] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

pear,?  And  isj^it_thisLlargeb^  the  result  of  too 
much,  technical  instruction,  and  too  little  good 
music  ?  I  know  that  there  are  many  more  dis- 
tractions for  children  than  formerly  ;  I  know 
that  the  home  influence  in  music  is  slight,  and 
that  parents  assume  less  responsibility  for  their 
children  than  they  used  to  do.  But,  grant- 
ing all  this,  the  musical  instruction  in  public 
schools  does  not  fulfill  its  proper  function,  nor 
can  it  hope  to  do  so  until  it  changes  its 
ideals. 

There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that,  speaking 
generally,  the  best  music  with  which  to  train 
the  taste  of  young  children  is  that  known  as 
"  folk-song."  The  supposition  that  any  mu- 
sician is  capable  of  composing  a  fine  enduring 
song  suitable  for  children  is  false  in  its  very 
essence.  The  constant  appearance  of  new  songs 
for  children  and  their  inevitable  disappear- 
ance in  the  next  generation  is  evidence  enough 
that  this  is  so,  apart  from  the  unmistakable 
evidence  in  the  songs  themselves.  In  reality 
the  good  tune  is  right,  the  poor  tune  wrong ; 
the  good  tune  conforms  to,  is  a  part  of  na- 
ture; the  poor  tune  is  false  in  quantity  and 
in  sentiment,  and  not  a  part  of  nature.  The 
[86] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

fine  tune  is  straightforward,  honest,  and  genu- 
ine in  sentiment;  the  inferior  tune  professes 
to  be  so,  but  it  is  not.  Fine  simple  tunes  of 
the  kind  suitable  for  children  to  sing  have 
been  composed,  —  "Way  Down  upon  the  Su- 
wanee  River"  is  an  example,  —  but  they  are 
very  few  in  number.  The  only  safeguard  is  to 
keep  chiefly  to  the  old  melodies  whose  qual- 
ity has  been  proved.  And  since  the  number 
of  fine  folk-tunes  is  more  than  sufficient  for 
our  purpose,  and  since  most  of  them  are 
not  copyrighted,  there  would  seem  to  be  no 
reason  whatever  why  they  should  not  con- 
stitute the  larger  part  of  the  music  we  give 
our  children  to  sing  in  their  early  years  of 
school  life. 

I  have  said  that  children  like  real  tunes  in 
preference  to  false  ones.  We  have  therefore  a 
perfectly  sound  basis  upon  which  to  build. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  singing  is  in 
itself  an  agreeable  pastime  to  children  and  that 
their  taste  can  be  lowered  as  well  as  raised. 
With  their  fundamental  good  taste  to  build 
on,  we  can  be  reasonably  sure  of  accomplish- 
ing our  purpose  if  we  provide  them  all  through 
their  school  life  with  the  best  music  and  no 

[87] 


other.  This  is  not  done  and  the  failure  of  our 
school  music  to  justify  itself  can  be  attributed 
chiefly  to  this. 

Nowhere  is  this  more  evident  than  in  the 
very  place  where  it  will  do  the  most  harm  — 
namely,  in  the  kindergarten.  And  this  is  true 
of  kindergartens  generally.  In  the  process  of 
providing  very  young  children  with  suitable 
words  for  their  songs  —  which  in  the  kinder- 
garten are  considered  of  first  importance  — 
the  effect  of  inferior  music  seems  to  have 
been  entirely  ignored.  In  other  words,  the 
one  sense  through  which  young  children  re- 
ceive their  most  vivid  impressions  has  been 
systematically  and  persistently  violated.  I  have 
examined  a  great  many  song  books  used  in 
American  kindergartens  and  I  have  never 
found  one  that  was  really  suitable  for  the  pur- 
pose of  training  the  musical  taste  of  young 
children.  Our  craving  for  a  complete  peda- 
gogical system  is  characteristic  ;  it  is  our  refuge, 
our  bulwark.  Instead  effacing  actual  problems 
as  they  are,  we  take  some  ready-made  system 
—  which  some  other  perplexed  person  has 
made  for  a  shelter  —  and  proceed  to  adopt  it 
in  toto.  I  mean  by  this  that  the  custom  of 
'[88  ] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

kindergarten  authorities  is  to  buy  a  book  in 
the  open  market  —  a  book  whose  sole  guaran- 
tee is  that  it  is  for  sale.  It  probably  contains 
inferior  music,  but  the  purchaser  asks  no  ques- 
tions. Now  an  enterprising  and  well-equipped 
teacher  could  gather  together  during  a  sum- 
mer holiday  twenty-five  simple  folk-songs, 
could  have  suitable  words  written  for  them, 
and  could  have  them  mimeographed  (if  more 
copies  were  needed),  and  put  into  use  in  her 
school.  I  say  nothing  of  the  benefit  to  her  of 
doing  this. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  our  public  school 
music  labors  under  great  difficulties.  The 
classes  are  too  large,  —  sometimes  forty-five 
children  in  a  room, —  the  music  lesson  period 
is  too  short ;  the  music  teacher  visits  each  room 
at  too  great  intervals;  the  grade  teacher  is 
perhaps  not  properly  qualified  to  teach  mu- 
sic and  the  head  master's  interest  in  it  may  be 
perfunctory.  The  study  itself  is,  therefore, 
irregular,  as  must  be  the  case  when  such  con- 
ditions as  these  exist.  Yet  we  are  trying  to 
produce  expert  results.  Why  not  say  to  our- 
selves that  since  our  population  as  a  whole  is 
not  yet  actively  interested  in  the  best  music, 

[89] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

and  since  the  children  are  unlikely  to  hear 
much  of  it  outside  the  school,  and  since  by 
nature  and  habit  and  association  there  is  really 
nothing  in  our  musical  life  to  justify  spending 
our  money  on  teaching  expert  sight-singing 
to  children — the  undertaking  being  in  a  sense 
anomalous  and  detached;  why  not  say  to  our- 
selves :  "We  must  first  of  all  teach  our  chil- 
dren  to  love  the  best  music,  and  then  we 
must  train  them  to  read  it,  not  necessarily  'at 
sight,'  but  to  read  it  well  enough  to  satisfy  all 
the  demands  likely  to  be  made  in  that  direc- 
tion in  after  life."1 1  would  sweep  away  half  the 
pedagogical  paraphernalia  of  our  public  school 
music  teaching.  I  believe  much  more  valuable 
results  could  be  secured  by  constant  contact 
with  the  best  music,  and  continued  observa- 
tion of  it,  with  a  minimum  of  technical  exercises. 
I  believe  the  processes  of  music  to  have  no 
significance  whatever  except  as  they  appear  in 

*  I  do  not  mean  by  the  foregoing  that  I  consider  a  fair  de- 
gree of  expertness  in  reading  music  "at  sight"  an  impossible 
attainment  for  children.  What  I  have  said  has  been  entirely  in 
reference  to  our  public  schools  as  they  are  at  present  consti- 
tuted, and  to  the  arrangements  now  made  for  the  teaching  of 
music.  The  teaching  of  sight-singing  requires  the  services  of 
an  expert,  more  time  than  our  schools  now  give,  and  a  more 
scientific  method  than  that  now  employed. 

[90] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

great  compositions,  and  that  constant  contact 
with  and  observation  of  fine  music  is  more 
valuable  than  the  study  of  the  rules  by  which 
it  is  made,  or  the  technique  by  which  it  is  pro- 
duced. In  music  as  in  poetry  we  deduce  the 
rules  and  laws  from  the  artistic  objects  them- 
selves. The  composer  and  the  poet  are  to  us 
what  nature  is  to  them. 

V.    ATTEMPTS  AT  REFORM 

I  have  drawn  the  foregoing  conclusions  from 
an  extended  observation  and  experience  of  pub- 
lic school  music,  and  I  ought  to  add  —  lest  the 
record  seem  too  despairing  —  that  in  a  con- 
siderable number  of  places  intelligent  and  open- 
minded  men  and  women  have  been  doing  their 
best  to  stem  the  tide  of  inferior  music  and  of 
artificial  methods  of  teaching.  During  the  last 
two  years  I  have  been  serving  on  an  unpaid 
advisory  committee  appointed  by  the  School 
Committee  of  the  City  of  Boston  to  improve 
the  teaching  of  music  in  the  public  schools. 
The  School  Committee  of  Boston  consists  of 
five  people  elected  by  the  people.  They  be- 
came aware  of  the  inefficiency  of  the  teaching 
through  an  independent  investigation  carried 

[91  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

on  by  Dr.  A.  T.  Davison,  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity (who  is  chairman  of  our  committee), 
and  they  asked  him  to  form  a  committee  to 
help  them.  Boston  was  spending  some  forty 
thousand  dollars  for  public  school  music. 
During  one  school  year  the  members  of  our 
committee  visited  schools,  taking  note  of  what 
they  heard  and  saw,  and  finally  each  member 
submitted  a  written  report  to  the  chairman. 
These  were  made  the  basis  for  a  general  re- 
port to  the  School  Committee  by  whom  it  was 
accepted. 

'  /  The  Boston  teaching  was  especially  weak  in 
'dealing  with  rhythm,  and  for  a  perfectly  sim- 
ple reason.  Rhythm  was  taught,  not  as  action, 
which  it  is,  but  as  symbol,  which  it  is  not.  The 
various  rhythmic  figures  were  taught,  in  other 
words,  through  the  mind  instead  of  through 
the  body.  These  rhythmic  figures  were  given 
arbitrary  names  (to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred), and  the  children,  looking  at  the  sym- 
bols, were  told  the  strange  name  given  to  them, 
and,  sitting  quite  still,  produced  the  required 
sounds.  The  teachers  did  not  even  beat  the 
time.  The  usual  answer  we  got  when  asking 
about  rhythm  was, "  Oh,  they  feel  the  rhythm." 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

This  may  have  been  true,  but,  if  it  were,  the 
children  were  extreme  individualists  !  This  sort 
of  rhythmic  teaching  is  common  in  the  United 
States  and  the  defect  is  a  grave  one.  The_arith- 
metical  complications  of  rhythm  in  music  should 
never  be  taught  to  little  children  at  all.  Just 
as  they  should  sing_the  melody  by  imitating  the 
teacher,  so  tKey  shouldTKe  taught  the  rhythm 
by  imitating,  in  action,  the  time  value  of  the 
notes*,JV  child  who  has  sung  a  simple  folk- 
song many  times,  and  has  danced,  or  marched, 
or  clapped  his  hands  in  exact  time  and  rhythm 
with  the  notes,  can  be  taught  later  the  pitch 
names  and  the  time  names  of  those  notes  with- 
out the  slightest  difficulty  and  without  any 
subterfuge  whatever.  In  a  schoolroom  contain- 
ing some  forty  children,  and  with  the  space 
largely  occupied  by  desks  and  seats,  it  is,  of 
course,  impossible  to  carry  on  any  extended 
exercises  in  rhythm.  But  every  effort  should 
be  made  to  teach  musical  rhythms  as  action  be- 
fore they  are  taught  as  sounds.  Whenever  pos- 
sible classes  should  be  taken  to  the  assembly 
room,  where  there  is  a  sufficiently  large  open 
floor  space  for  such  exercises. 

But  the  most  distressing  condition  in  the 

[93  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Boston  schools — and  this  would  be  more  or 
less  true  everywhere  in  our  country  —  was  that 
all  the  children  in  the  kindergarten  and  pri- 
mary grades  were  learning  such  songs  as  would 
eventually  destroy  their  natural  taste  for  fine 
music.  This  is  the  one  great  indictment  against 
public  school  music  in  the  United  States  — 
that  it  has  been  made  to  order  for  schoolbooks, 
and  to  fit  technical  problems,  and  that  it  conse- 
quently fails  to  keep  the  allegiance  of  children. 
Nothing  but  the  best  will  ever  do  that,  and 
until  we  supply  the  best  our  school  music  is 
*0 .  bound  to  fail.  Our  committee,  as  a  prelimi- 
nary step  toward  reform,  recommended  that  all 
/  y  instruction  in  reading  music  should  be  post- 
/  /  poned  until  the  last  half  of  the  third  grade. 
This  allowed  us  to  institute  singing  by  ear  and 
at  the  same  time  to  teach  rhythm  by  beating 
time,  clapping  hands,  marching,  etc.  A  book 
of  folk-songs  was  compiled  by  Dr.  Davison 
and  myself  and  was  adopted  and  published  ' 
by  the  School  Committee.  The  greatest  diffi- 
culty here  has  been  to  get  suitable  verses  for 
the  simpler  songs.  We  have  spent  much  time 

1  Now  published  by  the  Boston  Music  Company,  26  West 
Street,  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

[94] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

over  this  one  matter  and  have  not,  even  then, 
always  been  successful.  Good  verses  for  very 
young  children  are  difficult  to  secure,  and  — 
to  instance  how  painstaking  the  process  of  mak- 
ing a  book  of  such  songs  is  —  we  have  some- 
times received  half  a  dozen  sets  of  verses  for 
a  simple  melody  without  rinding  one  that  we 
thought  suitable. 

It  is  perhaps  too  soon  to  draw  very  definite 
conclusions  from  the  results  of  these  reforms 
in  the  Boston  schools.  One  thing  is  certain  : 
a  very  large  number  of  children  five,  six,  and 
seven  years  of  age  are  now  singing  really  beau- 
tiful songs  without  seeing  any  music  at  all  and 
without  being  told  anything  whatever  about 
the  notes,  rests,  intervals,  etc.,  which  occur  in 
them.  Upon  the  experience  of  these  two  and 
one  half  years  of  singing  by  ear  we  shall  build 
up  skill  in  singing  by  note  and  this  skill  will 
be  acquired  with  much  greater  ease  than  would 
be  otherwise  possible.  It  is  also  worth  noting 
that  the  expense  of  music  books  in  these  grades 
(and  the  same  will  be  true  of  later  grades)  is 
more  than  cut  in  half.  In  the  kindergarten  and 
the  first  primary  grades  the  children  sing  with- 
out a  book ;  in  the  second  and  third  grades 

[95] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

they  use  a  simple  and  inexpensive  book  of 
words,  while  the  teachers  in  these  grades  use 
the  small  collection  of  folk-songs  already  re- 
ferred to. 

In  the  Boston  schools  ninety  minutes  a 
week  is  given  to  drawing,  and  sixty  minutes 
a  week  to  music.  It  is  obvious  that  a  daily 
lesson  in  music  twelve  minutes  long  is  entirely 
inadequate  for  proper  instruction.  An  increase 
to  twenty  minutes  a  day,  or  to  three  half-hours 
a  week  is  highly  desirable.  In  many  schools 
entirely  too  much  time  is  devoted  to  prepar- 
ing music  for  the  graduation  exercises.  Fail- 
ing an  examination,  what  is  there  left  but  an 
exhibition  ? 

It  is  a  task  of  real  difficulty  to  reform  any 
strongly  entrenched  system  or  method  of  edu- 
cation. What  is  conclusively  demonstrated  as 
a  more  sensible  method  runs  against  self-in- 
terest, tradition,  intellectual  immovability  (to 
use  a  moderate  term  !),  and  other  even  more 
violent  opposition.  The  reforms  we  are  insti- 
tuting in  Boston  need  the  combined  force  of 
all  the  persons  in  authority,  of  all  the  teaching 
staff,  and  of  public  opinion.  No  one  of  these 
forces  is  being  fully  exerted  owing  to  circum- 

[96] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

stances  over  which  we  have  no  control.  But 
we  have  accomplished  something,  for  we  have 
reduced  the  expense  and  we  have  simplified 
the  teaching;  and  each  of  these  improvements 
was  sadly  needed. 

VI.    OTHER  ACTIVITIES  IN  SCHOOL  MUSIC 

One  of  the  encouraging  signs  of  our  ad- 
vancement is-  in~  orchestral  --play-ing. ..  School 
orchestras  have  become  important  features  of 
school  life,  and  the  excellence  of  some  of  the 
orchestral  playing  is  remarkable.  It  often  out- 
shines the  singing,  and  it  is  frequently  self- 
contained,  being  under  the  direction,  not  of 
the  music  teachers,  but  of  the  head  master  or 
one  of  his  assistants.  In  this  department  of 
music  teaching,  as  in  the  singing  lessons,  much 
depends  on  the  attitude  of  the  head  master. 
In  our  Boston  schools  there  are  notable  exam- 
ples of  fine  music  fostered  and  sustained  by 
enthusiastic  head  masters  who  lay  great  stress 
on  that  as  contrasted  with  mere  technical  ex- 
pertness.  Credit  toward  the  high-school  di- 
ploma is  now  given  in  Boston  for  study  of  the 
pianoforte  or  an  orchestral  instrument  outside 
school  hours  and  with  independent  teachers. 

[97] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Lists  are  issued  to  indicate  the  standard  of 
music  and  of  performance  for  each  grade,  and 
certificates  of  hours  of  practice  are  required  of 
parents.  This  system  of  credits  depends  for  its 
success  on  securing  competent  examiners  not 
otherwise  connected  with  the  schools,  for  by 
this  means  poor  teachers  are  gradually  elimi- 
nated. Many  schoolrooms  are  provided  with 
phonographs  which  may  be  a  powerful  factor 
in  building  up  or  in  breaking  down  the  taste 
of  children.  An  approved  list  of  records  for 
the  Boston  schools  is  in  course  of  preparation 
in  order  to  eliminate  undesirable  music  and  to 
increase  the  usefulness  of  the  instruments. 

Singing  by  ear  spontaneously  and  without 
technical  instruction,  but  rather  for  the  joy  of 
doing  it,  and  for  the  formation  of  the  taste  on 
good  models,  is  the  proper  beginning  of  all 
musical  education.  Such  experience,  coupled 
with  proper  rhythmic  exercises,  constitutes  a 
real  basis,  not  only  for  sight-singing,  but  for 
performance  on  any  instrument.  No  child 
should  be  admitted  for  possible  credit  in  piano- 
forte playing  or  be  allowed  to  enter  violin 
classes  until  so  prepared  in  singing  and  in 
rhythm.  The  pianoforte  neither  reveals  nor 

[98] 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

corrects  the  defective  ear;  the  violin,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  reveal  it,  though  it  does  not 
necessarily  correct  it.  Defective  rhythm  can 
be  properly  corrected  only  through  actual 
rhythmic  motions  of  the  body. 

Many  high  schools  now  offer  courses  in 
what  is  called  "The  Appreciation  of  Music." 
The  success  of  such  courses  depends  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  on  the  quality  of  music  used 
in  the  primary  and  grammar  grades.  If  the 
children  have  been  singing  inferior  music  for 
eight  years,  the  difficulties  of  teaching  them 
to  appreciate  the  best  is  correspondingly  in- 
creased. If,  on  the  contrary,  their  taste  has 
been  carefully  formed  on  good  models,  the 
introduction  to  great  music  has  already  been 
made.  In  studying  symphonies,  for  example, 
one  would  begin  with  Haydn  whose  sym- 
phonies and  chamber  music  are  largely  based 
on  folk-melodies.  In  short,  courses  in  appre- 
ciation should  be  the  culmination  of  the  mu- 
sical education  of  our  young  people.  Such 
courses  should  have  for  their  object,  first  and 
foremost,  the  cultivation  of  the  musical  mem- 
ory, for  this  is  an  absolute  essential  to  anybody 
who  hopes  to  listen  to  music  intelligently. 

[99] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

After  this  has  been  accomplished,  the  student 
should  listen  to  simple  instrumental  pieces 
whose  style  and  form  should  be  explained, 
and  the  explanation  should  be  as  untechnical ' 
as  possible.  Each  of  the  properties  or  quali- 
ties of  music  is  susceptible  of  treatment  on 
the  broad  grounds  of  aesthetics,  and  one's  suc- 
cess in  teaching  young  people  to  understand 
it  depends  considerably  on  the  ability  so  to 
present  it.  The  instructor  and  an  assistant 
should  play  on  a  pianoforte  all  the  music  stud- 
ied, or,  failing  that,  a  mechanical  piano-player 
should  be  used. 

And  now  let  me  say  that  the  most  impor- 
tant and  beneficial  step  any  community  could 
take  toward  improving  its  school  music  would 
be  to  secure  a  supervisor  who  is  untainted  by 
current  American  pedagogical  theories  of  sight- 
singing,  who  will  not  attempt  to  teach  little 
children  something  they  cannot  possibly  un- 
derstand, and  who  will  use  nothing  but  the 
best  music  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  high 

1  Counterpoint,  for  example,  is,  strictly,  note  against  note, 
two  melodies  parallel  to  each  other  ;  aesthetically,  counterpoint 
consists  in  illuminating,  illustrating,  or  developing,  a  phrase 
or  theme  by  parts  of  itself — what  in  architecture  would  be 
described  as  making  the  ornament  grow  out  of  the  structure. 


PUBLIC  SCHOOL  Music 

school.  No  community  is  really  helpless  if  it 
will  bestir  itself.  If  our  public  school  music 
teaching  were  well  devised  and  properly  ad- 
ministered and  if  our  children  were  taught  to 
sing  nothing  but  the  best  music,  we  might 
look  forward  to  a  time,  not  far  distant,  when  a 
generation  of  music-lovers  would  take  the 
place  of  the  present  generation  of  music-tast- 
ers. Our  young  people  would  gravitate  natu- 
rally into  choirs  and  singing  societies.  Groups 
of  people  would  gather  together  to  sing;  fam- 
ilies would  sing  together;  there  would  be 
chamber  music  parties  ;  we  should  pass  many 
a  quiet  domestic  evening  at  home  listening  to 
Mozart  and  Beethoven  instead  of  playing 
bridge  or  going  to  a  moving-picture  theater. 
The  whole  body  of  American  music  would  be 
affected  by  the  influx  .of  those  young  people 
who  would  want  the  best.  In  course  of  time, 
perhaps,  —  although  one  must  not  expect  the 
millennium,  —  the  vapid  drawing-room  song 
would  disappear  along  with  the  tinkling  piano- 
forte show-piece.  'Cellists  would  play  some- 
thing better  than  pieces  by  Popper;  the  thir- 
teenth concerto  by  Viotti  and  the  thirtieth 
Hungarian  rhapsodic  would  be  relegated  to 


Music  AND  LIFE 

that  limbo  where  now  repose  (we  hope  in 
death)  the  "Battle  of  Prague"  and  "Mon- 
astery Bells."  This  cannot  be  brought  about 
casually.  We  must  set  about  it ;  and  the  place 
to  begin  is  in  our  public  schools. 


CHAPTER  IV 
COMMUNITY  MUSIC 

I.    MUSIC  BY   PROXY 

IN  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  dealt  with 
special  musical  subjects,  and  have  constantly 
referred  to  music  as  a  distinct  and  independent 
art  having  its  own  reasons  for  existence.  I  have 
dealt,  also,  with  some  of  its  special  functions 
as  well  as  with  its  relation  to  the  education  of 
children.  In  the  present  chapter  it  is  my  pur- 
pose to  discuss  music  in  its  relation  to  com- 
munities large  and  small,  and  this  necessitates 
treating  it  on  the  broadest  possible  grounds. 

By  community  music  I  mean,  first,  music 
in  which  all  the  people  of  a  community  take 
part ;  second,  music  which  is  produced  by  cer- 
tain members  of  the  community  for  the  benefit 
and  pleasure  of  the  others;  and  third,  music 
which,  while  actually  performed  by  paid  art- 
ists, is  nevertheless  somehow  expressive  of  the 
will  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  I  shall  take 
no  refuge  behind  generalities  or  theories  of  1 
aesthetics.  I  want  to  reach  everybody,  includ- 

[  I03  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

ing  the  person  who  says,  "  I  don't  know  any- 
thing about  music  but  I  know  what  I  like," 
and  that  other  extraordinary  person  who  says, 
"  I  know  only  two  tunes,  one  of  which  is  *  Yan- 
kee Doodle ' '  —  each  of  these  statements  being 
quite  incomprehensible,  since  it  is  a  poor  per- 
son indeed  who  doesn't  know  what  he  likes, 
and  anybody  who  knows  "Yankee  Doodle" 
has  no  excuse  whatever  for  not  knowing  what 
the  other  tune  is,  or,  so  far  as  that  goes,  what 
any  other  tune  is.  I  am,  in  short,  appealing 
on  common  grounds  about  a  common  thing. 
My  only  question  is  this:  If  there  is  a  means 
of  interesting,  delighting,  and  elevating  a  large 
number  of  people  at  very  small  expense,  by 
something  which  they  can  all  do  together  and 
which  brings  them  all  into  sympathy  with  one 
another,  and  if  the  result  of  this  cooperation  is 
to  produce  something  beautiful,  is  it  not  worth 
doing?  I  intend  to  make  as  full  an  answer  to 
this  question  as  space  permits. 

It  is  in  the  "doing"  and  the  "doing  to- 
gether" that  the  crux  of  the  matter  lies,  for  a 
purely  external  connection  with  music  never 
brings  about  a  complete  understanding  of  it. 
It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  our  connection 
[  104  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

with  nearly  all  artistic  things  is  largely  external. 
We  do  not  draw;  we  do  not  train  the  eye  to 
see  or  the  hand  to  feel  and  touch,  and  artistic 
objects  regain  in  a  measure  strange  and  unin- 
telligible to  us.  The  whole  tendency  of  mod- 
ern life  and  of  modern  education  is  to  delegate 
those  functions  which  have  to  do  with  our  inner 
being.  We  delegate  our  religion  to  a  preacher 
or  to  a  dogma  ;  we  delegate  our  education  to  a 
curriculum  smoothed  out  to  a  common  level; 
some  of  us  even  delegate  the  forming  of  an 
opinion  on  passing  events  to  a  leader  who  pre- 
sents them  to  us  in  a  "current  events"  class. 
The  religion,  the  knowledge,  the  opinion  of 
many  a  person  belongs  to  some  one  else.  Many 
a  man  prefers  an  inferior  novel  because  the 
author  not  only  writes  it,  but  reads  it  for  him, 
whereas  to  the  wise  man  the  author  might  almost 
be  called  an  amanuensis.  In  any  case,  a  writer 
of  genuine  power  never  does  more  than  his 
share.  He  depends  on  us  to  complete  him. 
And  in  like  case,  if  we  expect  to  understand 
and  love  music  we  must  use  it;  the  composer 
depends  on  us  as  much  as  the  author  does. 

This  external  connection  with  music  and  this 
lack  of  intimacy  with  the  thing  itself  naturally 

[  105  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

leads  us  to  lay  stress  on  the  performance  of  it. 
We  revel  in  technique  and  we  exalt  the  per- 
sonalities of  players  and  singers.  In  our  opera 
houses  we  are  satisfied  only  when  we  have  an 
"all  star"  cast  by  whom  we  expect  to  be  as- 
tonished rather  than  delighted  and  elevated. 
Now,  fine  singing,  as  such,  is  of  little  impor- 
tance save  as  a  means  of  reproducing  fine  music. 
If  fine  singing  means  a  sacrifice  of  the  musical 
effect;  if  it  destroys  the  ensemble;  if  it  limits 
the  repertoire  —  then  it  is  not  worth  the  sacri- 
fice. Why  should  it  ever  do  so  ?  Simply  be- 
cause opera-goers  suffer  it,  and  for  no  other 
reason  in  the  world.  One  merely  needs  to 
mention  a  reasonable  plan  of  opera  —  such  as 
has  been  carried  out  for  generations  in  French, 
Italian,  and  German  cities  —  to  be  laughed 
at  by  those  devotees  who  have  sat  for  years  at 
the  feet  of  magnificence  warming  themselves 
in  the  effulgence  of  gilt  and  jewels.  So  it  is 
with  solo  recitals  and  orchestral  concerts.  One 
continually  hears  people  discussing  the  tech- 
nique of  pianists  and  violinists,  or  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  our  various  orchestras.  Local 
pride  —  the  last  thing  in  the  world  to  connect 
with  artistic  judgment  —  asserts  itself  in  favor 

[  106] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

of  one  orchestra  or  another,  until  it  would  al- 
most seem  that  the  only  purpose  of  having  an 
orchestra  was  to  excel  all  the  others.  How 
often,  on  the  contrary,  do  we  hear  the  music 
itself  intelligently  discussed?  In  short,  we  are 
trying  to  be  musical  vicariously  by  means  of 
an  occasional  performance  by  other  people  of 
music  the  greater  part  of  which  is  unfamiliar 
and,  therefore,  unintelligible  to  us.  This  is  like 
trying  to  be  religious  through  going  to  church 
once  a  week  and,  sitting  passively,  being 
preached  and  sung  at !  The  most  musical  com- 
munities are  not  those  where  all  the  musicof  the 
year  is  crowded  into  a  festival  of  three  or  four 
days,  but  those  where  there  is  the  most  real 
music  made  at  home.  A  German  musical  festi- 
val used  to  be  the  culmination  of  a  whole  year 
of  healthy  musical  activity,  and  the  occasion 
for  the  production  of  new  works  and  a  wide 
variety  of  old  ones.  An  English  or  an  American 
festival  is,  first  of  all,  an  opportunity  to  hear 
"  The  Messiah,"  and  secondly,  to  hear  a  fa- 
mous soloist.  The  attendance  on  those  two  occa- 
sions is  always  much  larger  than  at  any  others. 
Is  it  not  true  that  all  the  higher  functions  of 
the  soul  of  a  man  or  a  woman  or  of  a  com- 
[  107  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

munity  can  be  preserved  only  by  being  exer- 
cised ? 

In  what  follows  I  shall  try  to  show  how  we 
may  escape  from  the  conditions  in  which  we  now 
too  complacently  rest.  The  material  for  the 
change  is  abundant,  for  there  is  in  every  com- 
munity much  more  love  of  music  than  ever 
appears;  the  means  are  simple  and  inexpensive, 
for  only  a  few  dollars  worth  of  good  music  are 
needed,  with  a  room  in  which  to  practice,  a 
piano  and  a  leader.  Let  us  make  a  start  to- 
ward a  sincere  and  intimate  understanding  of 
music  through  making  it  ourselves.  Let  us 
give  up  criticism  of  other  people  and  begin  to 
construct.  Then  shall  we  learn  to  see  music  as 
it  is  and  to  value  it  accordingly. 

II.    OUR  MUSICAL  ACTIVITIES 

As  a  preliminary  to  this  discussion  it  will  be 
well  to  look  at  the  present  status  of  music 
among  us,  and  to  see  how  near  we  come  to  this 
necessary  intimacy  with  the  art. 

In  any  small  American  community  the  first 

impression  one  gets  about  music  is  that  it  is 

useful  to  fill  up  gaps.  At  the  theater,  before 

public  meetings,  at  social  affairs  of  one  sort  or 

[  108  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

another,  music  is  performed  to  a  ceaseless  hum 
of  conversation  or  while  people  are  entering 
and  leaving.  The  art  becomes,  in  consequence, 
like  the  cracking  of  the  whip  before  the  team 
starts,  or  like  the  perfunctory  speeches  and 
gestures  of  social  amenities ;  it  is  nothing  in  it- 
self, and  falls  in  our  estimation  accordingly. 
It  is  true  that,  at  such  times,  only  trivial  mu- 
sic is  usually  played,  but  this  only  makes  the 
situation  worse,  because,  after  all,  it  passes  as 
music.  A  bad  piece  of  music  at  the  theater  or 
while  one  is  dining  in  a  restaurant  is  merely  an 
annoyance;  a  good  piece  beats  its  head  against 
a  flood  of  conversation,  tinkling  glasses  and 
other  disturbances,  and  is  lost;  one  feels  as 
though  its  composer  had  been  insulted.  All 
this  incidental  music  must  be  partly  due  to  the 
decline  in  conversation.  We  are  relieved  of  all 
responsibility  save  an  occasional  "  yes  "  or  "  no  " 
shouted  above  the  din. 

Real  musical  activity  in  the  average  small 
community  is  limited  to  a  very  small  number 
of  its  inhabitants.  Only  a  few  people  sing;  a 
much  smaller  number  play  some  musical  in- 
strument. There  are,  here  and  there,  choirs 
made  up  of  volunteer  singers,  but  the  spirit 

[  I09  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

that  animated  the  old  choirs  —  the  spirit  which 
Hardy  has  celebrated  so  lovingly  in  "  Under 
the  Greenwood  Tree "  —  has  disappeared. 
Hymn-singing  in  church  is  often  distressingly 
bad,  and  with  good  reason,  since  the  composers 
of  modern  hymn  tunes  seldom  take  into  con- 
sideration the  needs  and  wishes  of  congrega- 
tions. Church  music  has  been  delegated  by  us 
to  paid  singers,  and  our  church  music  becomes 
a  thinly  disguised  concert,  or,  when  the  really 
abominable  vocal  quartette  supplies  the  music, 
a  concert  outright. 

What  days  those  were  when  old  William 
Dewey  and  Dicky,  and  Reuben  and  Michael 
Mail  played  in  the  Mellstock  church!  What 
a  fine  personal  character  such  music  had !  How 
they  loved  to  play  —  these  simple  rustics,  and 
how  intimate  was  the  relation  between  their 
music  and  the  people  and  the  place !  Read  the 
early  chapters  of  "Under  the  Greenwood 
Tree"  and  listen  to  the  ardent  discussions  be- 
tween the  players  before  they  go  out  on  their 
Christmas  rounds.  "'They  should  have  stuck 
to  strings  as  we  did,  and  keep  out  clar'nets, 
and  done  away  with  serpents.  If  you  'd  thrive 
in  musical  religion,  stick  to  strings,  says  I.'  ... 
[  "O] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

'Yet  there's  worse  things  than  serpents,'  said 
Mr.  Penny.  'Old  things  pass  away,  'tis  true; 
but  a  serpent  was  a  good  old  note;  a  deep 
rich  note  was  the  serpent.'  .  .  .  c  Robert  Penny, 
you  was  in  the  right!'  broke  in  the  eldest 
Dewey.  'They  should  ha'  stuck  to  strings.' 
'Your  brass-man  is  a  rafting  dog  —  well  and 
good;  your  reed-man  is  a  dab  at  stirring  ye  — 
well  and  good ;  your  drum-man  is  a  rare  bowel- 
shaker — good  again.  But  I  don't  care  who 
hears  me  say  it,  nothing  will  spak  to  your  heart 
wi'  the  sweetness  o'  the  man  of  strings."1 

In  the  preface  to  his  book  Hardy  speaks  of 
the  advantage  to  the  village  churches  of  that 
time  of  having  these  volunteer  players  and 
singers,  and  how  their  displacement  by  the 
harmonium  with  its  one  player  "  has  tended 
to  stultify  the  professed  aims  of  the  clergy, 
its  direct  result  being  to  curtail  and  extinguish 
the  interest  of  parishioners  in  church  doings." 
This  holds  good  in  our  own  village  churches 
to-day,  for  we  consider  music  more  a  means 
of  entertaining  the  church-goer  than  of  enlist- 
ing his  interest  in  the  services. 

Women's  clubs  provide  a  certain  sort  of 
musical  life  to  small  communities.  They  fos- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

ter  the  performance  by  members  of  rather  vari- 
egated programmes  of  pianoforte  pieces  and 
songs,  with  an  occasional  concert  by  a  paid 
performer  from  abroad,  and  they  sometimes 
make  a  study  of  a  composer  or  a  period  of 
music.  Many  of  them  lose  sight  of  the  only 
possible  means  of  vitally  influencing  the  mu- 
sical life  of  their  own  members  and  of  the  com- 
munity at  large. 

In  some  of  the  communities  of  which  I  am 
writing  there  are  choral  societies.  In  very  few 
is  there  any  well-sustained  and  continuous 
choral  organization  giving  concerts  year  after 
year  supported  by  the  general  public.  The 
record  of  choral  singing  in  America  shows  a 
constant  endeavor  to  attain  grandiose  results 
rather  than  to  foster  the  love  of  choral  singing 
for  itself.  Singing  societies  are  continually 
wrecked  by  the  expense  of  highly  paid  solo- 
ists, and  are  continually  striving  for  something 
beyond  their  reach. 

This  statement  would  not  be  complete  were 
we  to  omit  the  instruments  which  play  them- 
selves. The  educational  possibilities  of  these 
instruments  have  not  been  realized,  for  they 
are  used  chiefly  for  amusement.  In  spite  of 


COMMUNITY  Music 

the  extraordinary  selections  of  music  which 
one  finds  in  people's  houses,  and  in  spite  of 
the  seemingly  incorrigible  propensity  to  hear 
singing,  as  opposed  to  hearing  music, —  I 
mean  the  exaggerated  and  grotesque  singing 
of  certain  famous  people  who  care  chiefly  for 
sensation,  —  the  graphophone,  which  has  the 
practical  advantage  of  being  portable  and  in- 
expensive, —  it  has  transformed  many  a  lonely 
farmhouse,  —  and  the  mechanical  piano-play- 
ers have  become  so  popular  that  one  can  but 
conclude  that  there  are  multitudes  of  people 
whose  desire  for  music  has  never  before  been 
satisfied.  Would  that  this  desire  could  be 
turned  into  proper  channels ;  that  these  in- 
struments could  be  used  systematically  to 
build  up  taste  and  develop  understanding  of 
great  music.  The  larger  number  of  people 
using  them  have  no  means  of  knowing  what 
to  buy.  If  they  could  hear  the  best  music  their 
allegiance  would  probably  be  secured.  How 
many  parents  ever  think  of  the  responsibility 
laid  upon  them  of  preserving  or  improving 
the  musical  taste  of  their  children  by  a  careful 
supervision  of  the  records  or  rolls  used  with 
these  instruments? 

[  "3] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

This  completes  the  list  of  our  own  personal 
activities  in  music.  And  we  have  to  admit 
that  the  most  discouraging  item  of  all  comes 
at  the  end.  For  we  make  little  music  of  our 
own,  by  our  own  firesides  where  all  good 
things  should  begin,  and  where  we  should  find 
the  community  in  embryo.  What  a  delightful 
element  in  family  life  is  the  gathering  together 
of  young  and  old  to  join  in  singing  !  How  few 
families  cultivate  this  custom  !  How  few  par- 
ents, whether  they  themselves  care  for  it  or 
not,  realize  that  their  children  would  enjoy  it 
and  be  helped  by  it !  Why  should  not  such 
parents  begin  at  once  and  be  encouraged,  or 
even  taught  by  their  children  until  all  can  sing 
together  heartily  and  well  ?  Is  it  not  worth 
while  preserving  the  musical  sense  of  children, 
so  that  when  they  reach  your  age  they  will  not 
be  helpless  as  you  are  ?  Are  you  satisfied  to 
have  your  child's  music  merely  bought  and 
paid  for  outside  the  home?  How  can  you  ex- 
pect it  to  flourish  under  such  conditions  ?  Let 
the  children  teach  you,  if  need  be.  Copy  them, 
learn  their  songs  by  ear,  and  find  out  what 
music  really  is ! 

This  somewhat  meager  showing  of  musical 

[  "4] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

activity  does  not  completely  represent  our  con- 
nection with  the  art,  however,  for  nearly  all 
but  the  smallest  communities  spend  consider- 
able sums  for  concerts  by  paid  performers  from 
abroad.  But  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the  ma- 
jority of  the  people  in  any  small  community 
hear  very  little  real  music  at  all  save  at  occa- 
sional concerts,  and  if  a  fine  composition  is 
performed  they  seldom  hear  it  again,  so  that, 
it  is  clearly  impossible  for  them  to  understand 
it.  In  towns  of  from  five  to  twenty  thousand 
people  all  over  the  country  there  is  very  little 
consciousness  of  what  music  really  is.  Highly 
paid  performers  occasionally  appear,  and  local 
pride  asserts  itself  to  provide  them  with  the 
adulation  to  which  they  are  accustomed,  but 
real  musical  activity  or  musical  feeling  is  con- 
fined to  a  few. 

In  large  communities  these  conditions  are 
duplicated  and  even  exaggerated.  There  nearly 
all  the  music  is  bought  and  paid  for,  and  very 
little  is  home-made.  Nearly  all  choirs  are  com- 
posed of  paid  singers.  In  cities,  as  in  the  coun- 
try, choral  societies  are  struggling  to  find  men 
who  care  enough  about  singing  to  attend  re- 
hearsals. There,  too,  children  go  their  rounds 

[  "5] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  "music"  lessons.  The  only  possible  way  to 
estimate  the  state  of  music  in  our  cities  is  to 
look  at  the  population  as  a  whole.  By  counting 
up  the  number  of  fine  concerts  in  fashionable 
halls  one  arrives  at  no  significant  conclusions. 
Do  we  sing  at  home,  or  when  we  are  gathered 
together  in  friendly  converse  ?  Are  there  small 
centers  in  cities  where  good  music  can  be  heard  ? 
Is  there  any  good  music  within  reach  of  people 
of  small  means?  The  millionaire  regales  his 
friends  with  the  playing  of  his  private  organist 
(in  imitation  of  the  old  patron  days  of  art,  but 
generally  without  the  love  and  understanding 
of  music  which  was  the  sole  justification  for  the 
proceeding),  but  does  the  dweller  in  the  mod- 
est flat  ever  have  a  chance  to  hear  good  music  ? 
These  are  questions  we  need  to  ask  if  we  want 
to  estimate  the  state  of  music  in  our  great  cities. 
Is  not  all  this  grand  music,  as  I  have  said,  merely 
a  largess  of  our  prosperity  ? 

The  most  grandiose  and  disconnected  form 
of  our  musical  activity  is  the  opera.  And  when 
we  consider  the  love  of  drama  which  finds  ex- 
pression in  nearly  every  small  community  in  a 
dramatic  club,  we  cannot  but  deplore  the  al- 
most complete  detachment  of  opera  from  our 

[  "6] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

natural  thoughts,  feelings,  and  instincts.  Of 
this  detachment  there  is  no  doubt  whatever; 
the  wholg^  plan  of  American  operatic  produc- 
tions is  exotic,  aristocratic,  and  exclusive^ 

It  is  quite  true  that  we  are  continually  im- 
proving our  musical  status.  The  effect  of  all 
our  fine  music  may  indeed  be  observed,  but 
our  progress  is  undeniably  slow,  particularly 
when  we  remember  with  what  a  liberal  endow- 
ment we  start.  That  endowment  is  very  little 
less  than  other  peoples  possess.  Our  children 
are  musical,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  be.  Moreover,  the  strain  of  ideality 
which  runs  through  American  life,  however 
naive  it  may  be,  would  seem  to  make  us  es- 
pecially qualified  to  love  and  understand  music. 

III.    WHAT  WE  MIGHT  DO 

I  have  indicated  in  a  former  chapter  some- 
thing of  our  needs  as  regards  the  musical  edu- 
cation of  children.  Tl^e  problem  before  me 
now^is  how  to  persuade  American  men  and 
women  into  active  cooperation  in  making  mu- 
sic.  It  is  obvious  tffat  there  Is  only  one  way 
"oFcToing  this,  and  that  is  by  singing.  Only  an 
infinitesimal  number  of  people  can  play  musi- 

[  "7  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

cal  instruments,  but  nearly  everybody  can  sing. 
To  play  requires  constant  practice.  Singing  in 
groups  does  not.  In  their  right  estate  every 
man  and  every  woman  should  sing. 

Now  my  urgent  appeal  for  singing  does  not 
mean  that  every  village,  town,  or  city  should 
turn  itself  bodily  into  a  huge  singing  society. 
Some  people  will  sing  better  than  others  and 
will  enjoy  it  more,  or  have  more  time  for  it. 
But  there  are  constant  opportunities  for  large 
groups  of  people  to  sing  —  in  church,  on  Me- 
morial Day,  at  Christmas  time,  at  patriotic 
gatherings,  or  at  dedications.  Nothing  is  more 
striking  on  such  occasions  than  the  total  lack 
of  any  means  of  spontaneously  expressing  that 
which  lies  in  the  consciousness  of  all,  and  which 
cannot  be  delegated.  What  a  splendid  expres- 
sion of  devotion,  of  commemoration,  of  dedi- 
cation, of  sacred  love  for  those  who  died  in  our 
Civil  War  would  a  thousand  voices  be,  raised 
up  as  one  in  a  great,  eternal,  memorial  hymn  ! 
What  do  we  do  ?  We  hire  a  brass  band  to  be 
patriotic,  devout,  and  commemorative  for  us. 
This  inevitably  tends  to  dull  our  patriotism  and 
our  devotion.  To  live  they  must  spring  forth  in 
some  sort  of  personal  expression.  In  a  village 

[  "8  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

I  know  well,  this  custom  mars  an  otherwise 
deeply  impressive  observance  of  Memorial 
Day.  The  "taps"  at  the  soldiers'  graves  in 
their  silent  resting  places,  the  sounds  of  minute 
guns  booming,  the  long  procession  of  towns- 
people, the  calling  of  the  roll  of  the  small  com- 
pany of  soldiers  who  marched  away  from  that 
village  green  half  a  century  ago,  with  only  an 
occasional  feeble  "Here"  from  the  handful 
of  survivors,  the  lowering  of  the  flag  on  the 
green  with  all  heads  uncovered,  all  eyes  strain- 
ing upward  —  these  make  the  ceremony  fine 
and  memorable.  It  needs  to  complete  it  only 
some  active  expression  on  the  part  of  every 
one  such  as  singing  would  provide. 

"  I  know  not  at  what  point  of  their  course, 
or  for  how  long,  but  it  was  from  the  column 
nearest  him,  which  is  to  be  the  first  line,  that 
the  King  heard,  borne  on  the  winds  amid  their 
field  music,  as  they  marched  there,  the  sound 
of  Psalms  —  many-voiced  melody  of  a  church 
hymn,  well  known  to  him;  which  had  broken 
out,  band  accompanying,  among  those  other- 
wise silent  men."  So  relates  Carlyle,  in  "  Fred- 
erick the  Great,"  of  the  march  of  Frederick  and 
his  army  before  the  battle  of  Leuthen.  "With 

[  "9] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

men  like  these,  don't  you  think  I  shall  have 
victory  this  day  ? "  says  Frederick.  Is  not  such 
singing  a  wonderful  thing?  Those  soldiers,  with 
a  common  dedication  to  duty,  and  a  common 
disdain  of  death,  send  up  to  some  dimly  sensed 
Heaven,  from  the  very  depths  of  their  being, 
a  song.  How  otherwise  could  they  express  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  that  must  have  been  clam- 
oring for  utterance  in  their  sturdy  breasts  ?  Their 
bodies  were  marching  to  battle.  What  of  their 
souls?  Shall  the  very  spirit  of  them  slumber 
on  their  way  to  death? 

And  we  ?  We  watch  from  afar;  we  are  dumb; 
we  look  on  this  profoundly  moving  ceremony, 
this  simple  pageant,  and  utter  nothing  of  what 
we  feel  and  what  we  are.  Why  do  we  not  sing? 
Is  it  not  partly  because  of  that  self-conscious- 
ness which  hangs  about  us  like  a  pall,  and 
partly  because  we  were  never  made  to  like  sing- 
ing well  enough  to  pursue  it?  The  former 
difficulty  we  could  overcome  easily  enough  if 
the  right  opportunity  continually  offered  itself. 
The  latter,  too,  would  disappear  as  occasion 
arose  when  we  could  sing  something  worth 
singing.  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner"  is  a 
candle-snuffer  on  the  flame  of  patriotic  feeling; 
[  120  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

never  was  there  an  air  more  unsuited  to  its 
purpose.  Since  we  have  almost  no  indigenous 
national  melodies,  why  should  we  not  sing  the 
old  songs,  chorals,  and  hymns  that  have  sur- 
vived all  sorts  of  national  changes  and  belong 
to  every  people?  The  tune  for  "America"  is 
not  an  American  tune,  neither  is  it  English. 
It  originated  in  Saxony.  There  is  no  national- 
ism to  stand  in  the  way  of  such  music,  because 
it  speaks  elementally  and  universally.  There 
are  scores  of  fine  melodies  which  we  could 
well  use. 

The  one  place  where  singing  might  be  fos- 
tered is  in  church.  But  where  the  worshipers 
are  asked  to  sing  a  hymn  pitched  too  high  for 
them,  or  one  that  moves  too  quickly,  or  is  full 
of  unfamiliar  and  difficult  progressions  in  both 
melody  and  harmony,  what  other  result  can 
be  expected  than  poor  singing  and  the  gradual 
abandonment  of  all  music  to  a  paid  choir? 
The  real  purpose  of  the  hymn  tune  has  been 
lost.  It  was  intended  to  serve  the  needs  of  all 
the  people,  and  to  do  this  it  must  be  simple 
in  both  melody  and  harmony,  and  within  the 
range  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
congregation.  The  sturdy  old  hymns  and  cho- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

rals  of  our  forefathers  were  so.  Nothing  is  finer 
in  church  music  than  good  unison  singing  in 
which  every  one  takes  part.  No  skilled  choir 
singing  can  ever  take  its  place. 

Even  the  manner  of  singing  hymns  has 
hanged.  Many  of  them  are  raced  through  at 
i ,  pace  which  leaves  one  half  the  congregation 
Behind,  and  totally  eclipses  the  other  half!  In 
many  of  the  old  hymn  tunes  there  is  a  pause 
at  the  end  of  each  line,  during  which  the  mem- 
bers of  the  congregation  had  a  reasonable 
chance  to  take  breath.  Even  these  pauses 
have  often  been  eliminated,  thus  destroying 
the  sense  of  the  music  and 'giving  a  colder 
shoulder  still  to  the  musical  and  devotional 
aspirations  of  the  congregation.  (If  space  per- 
mitted I  should  like  to  dwell  here  on  the  gene- 
sis of  some  of  these  old  tunes.  They  were 
deeply  embedded  in  the  common  life  of  our 
remote  forefathers,  and  had  no  taint  of  self- 
consciousness  in  them.  Springing  from  the 
soil,  they  survived  all  changes  of  dogma  and 
custom.  And  they  will  survive.  We  shall 
come  back  to  them  when  we  have  survived 
our  present  attack  of  prettiness.) 

The   decline   in    hymn-singing  is  evident 

[    122    ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

enough.  Save  in  churches  where  the  liturgy 
restrains  the  ambitions  of  the  choir,  almost 
anything  is  possible ;  and  even  under  that  re- 
straint there  is  a  constant  tendency  toward  dis- 
play. What  is  the  office  of  church  music?  Is 
it  to  astonish  or  delight  the  congregation  ?  Is 
it  to  supply  them  with  a  sacred  concert  or  fine 
singing  ?  To  take  their  minds  off  the  situation 
in  which  they  find  themselves  ?  To  ease  the 
effect  of  a  dull  sermon,  or  obliterate  the  effect 
of  a  good  one  ?  To  serve  as  a  bait  to  catch 
the  unwary  non-church-goer,  or  as  a  means  of 
retaining  the  waverer  within  the  fold?  Or  is 
it  to  induce  devotion  and  religious  feeling,  to 
keep  the  moment  sacred  and  without  intru- 
sion ?  If  the  choir  is  to  sing  alone,  why  should 
we  accept  from  it  display  pieces,  or  arrange- 
ments from  secular  music,  or  silly  "  sacred  " 
songs  overburdened  with  lush  sentiment,  or 
anthems  of  a  certain  fluent  type  composed  by 
anybody  who  can  put  a  lot  of  notes  together 
in  agreeable  sequence?  Why  should  we  toler- 
ate the  solo  in  operatic  style,  or  contemptible 
solo  quartette  music,  suitable  (and  hardly  that) 
for  the  end  of  a  commercial  "banquet"?  Is 
there,  then,  no  reality  behind  church  music  ? 

[   "3  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Is  it  merely  any  music  set  to  sacred  words  ? 
He  who  has  ever  studied  any  art  knows  that 
this  cannot  be  true.  The  finest  church  music 
—  of  which  Palestrina  and  Bach  are  the  great- 
est exponents  —  is  based  on  something  more 
than  a  casual  association  with  sacred  words. 
In  the  Protestant  churches  of  our  cities  the 
music  is  very  largely  derived  from  modern 
English  sources,  and  I  count  this  an  obsta- 
cle to  our  progress.  Beginning  with  the  last 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  English  church 
music  has  been  dominated  by  a  school  of 
composers  whose  music  is  charming,  or  pretty, 
or  melodious,  or  what-you-will,  but  is  not 
either  profound  or  devout.  Nearly  all  our  or- 
ganists are,  musically,  of  English  descent,  but 
they  treat  their  forefathers  with  but  scant  re- 
spect. There  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  pro- 
curing good  music  for  choirs.  There  is  a  sup- 
ply suitable  for  solo  singing  or  chorus,  for 
small  choir  or  large,  to  be  purchased  at  any 
music  shop.  There  are  a  dozen  fine  compos- 
ers whose  music  is  never  heard  in  most  Amer- 
ican churches;  composers  such  as  Palestrina, 
Vittoria,  and  others  of  the  great  period  of 
church  music ;  or  Bach,  or  Gibbons,  Bryd, 

[  i*4] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

and  Purcell,  whose  music  is  in  the  true  idiom, 
an  idiom  now  almost  entirely  lost;  or  John 
Goss,  Samuel  Wesley,  and  Thomas  Attwood 
in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
before  the  decadence  had  fairly  begun.  The 
earliest  of  this  music  is  written  for  voices  un- 
accompanied, and  is  therefore  too  difficult  for 
any  but  a  highly  trained  choir;  but  there  are 
plenty  of  simple  anthems  with  organ  accom- 
paniment by  the  early  English  composers 
named  above,  and  there  are  a  certain  number 
of  Bach's  motets  suitable  for  choirs  of  mod- 
erate ability. 

Let  me  mention  "  O  Thou,  the  central  orb," 
by  Gibbons,  as  an  example  of  a  fine  anthem  in 
the  old  style,  and  "  Oh,  Saviour  of  the  World," 
by  Goss,  as  an  example  of  the  simpler  and  later 
type.  These  are  beautiful,  simple;  and  dignified 
anthems  suitable  for  city  or  country  choir.  If 
the  city  choirmaster  will  give  over  for  a  time 
trying  to  provide  the  congregation  with  bril- 
liant music  which  is  chiefly  notable  for  its  ex- 
travagance of  technique  and  its  striking  effects, 
his  listeners  will,  perhaps,  be  able  to  revert  to 
that  state  of  quiet  devotion  which  the  rest  of 
the  service  has  induced.  Many  choir  directors 


Music  AND  LIFE 

would  doubtless  like  to  use  simpler  and  more 
devotional  music,  but  are  hindered  from  doing 
so  because  they  feel  upon  them  the  weight  of 
the  opinion  and  taste  of  the  congregation,  and 
perhaps  of  the  preacher.  Everybody,  regard- 
less of  his  qualifications  for  doing  so,  feels  at 
liberty  to  criticize  the  music  he  hears  in  church. 
Social  and  musical  clubs  for  women  exist  in 
great  numbers  all  over  the  United  States. 
They  are  often  useful  in  practical  ways,  but 
their  contact  with  artistic  matters  is,  on  the 
contrary,  often  ineffectual.  They  offer  their 
members  continual  sips  at  different  springs, 
but  no  deep  draught  at  one.  The  average 
member  of  a  women's  club,  if  she  is  to  be  helped 
in  anything,  must  be  helped  from  the  position 
in  which  she  then  is ;  and  this  is  particularly 
true  of  music.  But  she  is  torn  out  of  her  nat- 
ural environment  and  asked  to  listen  to  a  re- 
cital of,  say,  modern  French  music,  not  one 
note  of  which  answers  to  her  intelligence  or 
her  feelings.  The  passion  for  the  last  thing  in 
music  without  any  knowledge  of  the  first  is 
fatal  to  any  one.  And  when  one  considers  the 
enormous  membership  in  clubs  for  women  in 
this  country,  one  can  but  wish  that  more  effort 


COMMUNITY  Music 

were  made  to  help  the  individual  to  progress 
simply  and  naturally  step  by  step.  It  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  the  average  woman,  whose 
time  is  very  likely  occupied  with  domestic 
cares,  should  make  an  extended  study  of  mu- 
sic; but  it  is  possible  to  give  her  a  chance  to 
hear  a  few  simple,  good  compositions,  and  to 
hear  them  several  times  during  a  season,  so 
that  she  may  learn  to  understand  them.  The 
more  experienced  and  more  advanced  mem- 
bers of  women's  clubs  are  apt  to  dominate  in 
these  matters  and  to  forget  the  needs  of  the 
others,  and  there  is  certain  to  be  a  few  rare 
souls  who  dwell  entirely  in  the  rarefied  atmos- 
phere of  the  very  latest  music,  and  who  look 
down  on  the  common  ignorance  of  the  mass. 
Some  women's  clubs  purvey  only  the  perform- 
ance of  great  players  or  singers,  and  pride  them- 
selves on  their  lists  of  celebrities,  all  too  for- 
getful of  those  delicately  adjusted  scales  which 
demand  equal  weight  in  kind.  If  a  women's 
club  in  a  small  town  (or  in  a  large  one,  for  that 
matter)  should  abjure  for  the  moment  piano- 
forte and  vocal  recitals  of  the  latest  music,  and 
should  proceed  to  devote  a  little  time  to  sing- 
ing, in  unison,  some  fine  old  songs  in  which 


Music  AND  LIFE 

every  one  could  take  part,  a  fair  start  would 
be  made.  I  am  not  attempting  to  belittle  the 
musical  capabilities  of  these  clubs,  nor  am  I 
decrying  expert  performances;  I  am  merely 
speaking  for  the  average  woman  who  has  had 
little  opportunity  for  musical  education  or 
musical  experience,  and  who  is  usually  left  far 
behind  as  club  programmes  run,  yet  who  is  ca- 
pable of  understanding  music  if  it  be  brought 
to  her  in  the  proper  manner.  Ask  her  to  sing 
with  you  and  she  is  brought  into  the  fold  in- 
stead of  straying  blindly  outside.  Every  meet- 
ing of  a  women's  club  (why  qualify?  —  of  any 
club,  save,  perhaps,  a  burglar's,  where  silence 
would  be  desirable)  should  begin  with  a  hearty 
song.  Step  by  step  —  not  a  violent  leap  to  a 
dizzy  height;  we  cannot  become  musical  by  the 
force  of  our  aspiration  even  though  it  be  quite 
sincere;  nature  unrelentingly  exacts  of  us  that 
same  slow  growth  which  she  herself  makes. 
There  is  no  to-morrow. 

If  all  the  people  in  a  community  expressed 
themselves  at  appropriate  times  and  seasons  by 
singing,  it  would  naturally  follow  that  a  goodly 
number  of  them  would  form  themselves  into  a 
singing  society.  This  society  would  satisfy  the 


COMMUNITY  Music 

desire  of  the  community  to  hear  such  music 
as  can  be  performed  only  after  considerable 
practice.  I  cannot  emphasize  too  strongly  the 
connection  between  the  community  and  the 
singing  society.  The  latter  should  be  the  an- 
swer to  the  community's  desire,  and  not  be  a 
spectacle  —  if  I  may  mix  my  metaphors  to  that 
extent. 

IV.    AN  EXPERIMENT 

I  live  in  a  town  of  some  six  thousand  in- 
habitants which  about  answers  to  the  descrip- 
tion given  near  the  beginning  of  this  article. 
There  was  a  singing  society  in  the  place  about 
thirty  years  ago,  but  since  then  there  has  been 
little  choral  singing.  Two  years  ago  I  asked 
some  thirty  people  to  come  together  to  prac- 
tice choral  singing.  I  then  stated  that  I  should 
like  to  train  them  if  they  would  agree  to  two 
conditions :  first,  that  we  should  sing  none  but 
the  very  best  music,  and  second,  that  our  con- 
certs should  be  free  to  the  townspeople.  These 
conditions  were  at  once  agreed  to  and  we  started 
rehearsing.  We  found  it  possible  to  get  the 
use  of  the  largest  church  containing  a  good 
organ,  and  we  found  four  people  who  played 
[  129  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

the  violin  and  two  the  violoncello.  Our  little 
orchestra  finally  grew  until  we  had  some  eight 
or  ten  string  players.  We  borrowed  kettle- 
drums and  one  of  our  enthusiasts  learned  to 
play  them. 

We  have  given  three  concerts,  at  each  of 
which  the  church  was  more  than  filled  —  it 
seats  about  six  hundred  people.  Our  pro- 
grammes have  contained  Brahms's  "Schick- 
salslied"  (Song  of  Fate)  and  parts  of  his  "Re- 
quiem," Bach's  motet,  "  I  Wrestle  and  Pray," 
arias  from  the  "St.  Matthew  Passion,"  and 
similar  compositions.  Our  soloists  have  been 
members  of  our  chorus,  with  little  previous 
experience  of  such  music  as  we  have  been 
singing,  but  with  a  profound  sensibility  to  it 
brought  about  by  continued  practice  of  it.  The 
townspeople  who  have  come  to  hear  our  music 
have  given  certain  evidence  of  a  fact  which  I 
have  for  many  years  known  to  be  true,  namely, 
that  when  people  have  a  chance  to  know  thor- 
oughly a  great  composition  it  invariably  se- 
cures their  complete  allegiance.  We  have  there- 
fore repeated  our  performance  of  these  various 
works,  sometimes  singing  one  piece  twice  in 
the  same  concert.  We  have  given,  for  example, 

[  130  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

the  "Schicksalslied"  three  times  in  two  years, 
and  both  singers  and  audience  are  completely 
won  over  to  it. 

Our  singing  society  is  supported  by  the 
payment  of  fifty  cents  each  by  any  individual 
who  cares  to  subscribe.  We  give  two  open  con- 
certs a  year,  at  which  six  hundred  people  hear 
the  finest  choral  music  at  a  total  annual  expense 
of  about  seventy-five  dollars.  Every  one  con- 
nected with  the  project  gives  his  or  her  serv- 
ices free.  Our  concerts  take  place  on  Sunday 
afternoons.  At  the  last  one  I  tried  an  interest- 
ing experiment.  Bach's  motet,  "  I  Wrestle  and 
Pray,"  is  based,  as  is  common  in  his  choral 
pieces,  on  a  chorale  which  is  sung  by  the  so- 
pranos in  unison,  with  florid  counterpoints  in 
the  other  parts.  At  the  end  the  chorale  is  given 
in  its  original  form,  so  that  the  congregation 
may  join  in  the  singing  of  it.  It  was  a  simple 
matter  for  us  to  get  six  hundred  copies  of  this 
chorale  reproduced  by  mimeograph,  and  these 
were  distributed  in  the  pews.  The  result  was 
almost  electrifying  to  one  who  had  heard  the 
feeble  church  singing  of  feebler  hymns  in  our 
churches.  The  second  time  the  motet  was  sung 
—  we  performed  it  at  the  beginning  and  at  the 


Music  AND  LIFE 

end  of  this  concert — nearly  every  one  joined 
in  and  the  echoes  rolled  as  they  had  never 
rolled  before  in  that  church.  Why?  These 
very  same  people  send  up  feeble,  timid,  dis- 
organized, slightly  out-of-tune  sounds  every 
Sunday  morning  in  their  various  churches.  Has 
a  miracle  happened  that  they  are  lustily  sing- 
ing together?  Not  at  all.  They  have  merely 
been  offered  an  opportunity  to-do  what  they 
are  all  quite  capable  of  doing,  namely,  singing 
a  hymn  suited  to  them.  This  chorale  has  a 
range  of  but  five  tones — from  /to  c;  it  is 
largely  diatonic,  proceeding  step  by  step  of  the 
scale,  and  it  is  noble  and  inspiring.  How  often 
had  such  an  opportunity  been  presented  to 
them  before?  Why  not? 

The  members  of  our  chorus  are  such  people 
as  one  would  find  in  most  American  towns  of 
the  same  size.  Perhaps  we  are  more  than  u sually 
fortunate  in  our  solo  singers  and  our  orches- 
tra. I  believe  the  chief  reason  why  a  project 
like  this  might  be  difficult  in  many  places  is 
because  it  might  not  be  possible  to  find  a  leader 
who  cared  more  for  Bach  and  Brahms  than  for 
lesser  composers.  The  technical  problem  is  not 
extreme,  but  the  leader  must  have  unbounded 

[  13*  ] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

belief  in  the  best  music  and  tolerate  nothing 
less.  The  moment  this  latter  condition  lapses, 
choral  singing  will  lapse  —  as  it  would  deserve 
to  do. 

There  are  many  small  communities  where 
choral  concerts  on  a  large  scale  are  occasionally 
given.  Great  effort  and  great  expense  are  not 
spared.  Several  hundred  voices,  a  hired  orches- 
tra, and  hired  soloists  make  the  event  notable. 
But  the  music  performed  is  of  such  a  charac- 
ter that  no  one  wants  to  hear  it  again;  neither 
the  singers  who  practice  it  nor  the  audience 
who  listen  to  it  are  moved  or  uplifted.  There 
have  even  been  systematic  efforts  in  some 
middle  western  states  to  establish  community 
singing.  The  effect  of  such  efforts  depends 
there,  as  here,  on  the  kind  of  music  which 
people  are  asked  to  sing,  for  this  is  the  heart 
of  the  whole  matter.  No  advance,  in  music,  or 
in  anything  else,  can  be  expected  without  con- 
stant striving  for  the  very  best.  And  it  is  quite 
within  bounds  to  say  that  most  of  these  efforts 
are  nullified  by  lack  of  a  really  high  standard. 
Finally,  let  me  say  that  a  concert  of  good  mu- 
sic by  a  local  choral  society  is,  to  the  people 
of  any  community,  immensely  more  valuable 

[  133  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

than  a  paid  musical  demonstration  by  perform- 
ers from  abroad  which  costs  five  times  as  much 
money. 

V.    MUSIC  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE 

Leaving  this  actual  experience  and  its  effects 
on  the  community,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what 
this  singing  means  to  the  individuals  who  do 
it.  In  the  first  place,  it  makes  articulate  some- 
thing within  them  which  never  finds  expres- 
sion in  words  or  acts.  In  the  second  place,  it 
permits  them  to  create  beauty  instead  of  stand- 
ing outside  it.  Or,  to  speak  still  more  definitely, 
it  not  only  gives  them  an  intimate  familiarity 
with  some  great  compositions,  but  it  accustoms 
them  to  the  technique  by  means  of  which  mu- 
sic expresses  itself.  They  learn  to  make  melodic 
lines,  to  add  a  tone  which  changes  the  whole 
character  of  a  chord;  they  learn  how  themes 
are  disposed  in  relation  to  one  another;  they 
come  into  intimate  contact  with  the  actual  ma- 
terials of  the  art  by  handling  them.  This,  we 
do  not  need  to  say,  is  the  key  to  the  knowledge 
and  understanding  of  anything.  You  cannot 
understand  life,  or  love,  or  hate,  or  objects,  or 
ideas,  until  you  have  dealt  in  them  yourself. 

[  134] 


COxMMUNITY    MUSIC 

Singing  has  the  profound  psychological  ad- 
vantage of  giving  active  issue  to  that  love  of 
beauty  which  is  usually  entirely  passive. 

The  artist  has  two  functions :  he  draws,  or 
paints,  or  models  ;  he  uses  language  or  sounds. 
This  comprises  his  technique.  But  he  also 
possesses  imaginative  perception.  Now,  noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  our  understand- 
ing of  what  he  does  must  be  in  kind.  We  learn 
to  understand  his  technique  by  actual  experi- 
ence of  it.  So,  also,  we  learn  to  enter  into  the 
higher  qualities  of  his  art  by  the  exercise  of 
the  same  faculties  which  he  uses.  Our  feelings, 
our  minds,  and  our  imaginations  must  take  a 
reflection  from  him  as  in  a  mirror.  If  the  glass 
is  blurred  or  the  angle  of  reflection  distorted 
we  cannot  see  the  image  in  its  perfection.  The 
light  comes  from  we  know  not  where. 

Let  any  reader  of  these  words  ask  himself 
if  the  statement  they  contain  of  the  qualities 
of  music  and  ©f  our  relation  to  it  could  not 
with  equal  force  be  applied  to  his  own  business 
or  occupation.  Is  not  his  understanding  of 
that  business  or  occupation  based  on  these  two 
essentials  :  first,  familiarity  with  its  methods 
and  materials,  and,  second,  some  conception 

[135] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  the  real  meaning,  significance,  and  possibil- 
ity that  lie  behind  its  outward  appearance  and 
manifestation  ? 

I  have  not  laid  sufficient  stress  on  the  ad- 
vantage to  men  of  singing.  Not  only  does  it 
enable  them  to  become  self-expressive,  but  it 
gives  them  the  most  whole~some  of  diversions, 
it  equalizes  them,  it  creates  a  sort  of  brother- 
hood, it  takes  their  minds  off  per  cents,  and 
gives  them  a  new  and  different  insight.  This 
is,  of  course,  not  accomplished  by  the  kind  of 
music  men  now  sing,  which  is  chiefly  associ- 
ated with  sports  and  conviviality.  So  long  as 
music  is  only  outside  us,  so  long  as  we  edu- 
cate our  children  without  bringing  them  into 
actual  contact  with  its  materials,  giving  them 
little  real  training  in  the  development  of  the 
senses,  just  so  long  will  it  remain  a  mystery, 
just  so  long  will  its  office  be  misunderstood. 
What  a  perplexity  it  is  now  to  many  of  us ! 
How  it  does  thrust  us  away !  We  have  got  be- 
yond being  ashamed  to  love  it,  but  we  love  it 
from  afar. 

From  a  sociological  point  of  view  this  dis- 
cussion has  thus  far  been  somewhat  limited. 
Now,  the  possibilities  in  music  to  weld  to- 

[  136] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

gether  socially  disorganized  communities  have 
never  been  fully  realized  in  America.  Were 
we  to  set  about  using  it  directly  to  that  end, 
we  should  find  out  how  valuable  it  is  in  break- 
ing down  artificial  barriers.  By  choral  singing, 
people  in  any  one  locality  can  be  brought  into 
a  certain  sympathy  with  each  other.  Groups 
who  attend  the  same  church,  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  children  whom  the  settlements 
reach  —  wherever  there  is  a  "neighborhood" 
there  is  a  chance  for  singing.  It  needs  only  a 
person  who  believes  in  it,  and  who  will  rigidly 
select  only  the  best  music.  And  where  neigh- 
borhood groups  have  been  singing  the  same 
fine  music,  any  great  gathering  of  people  would 
find  everybody  ready  to  take  part  in  choral 
singing.  This  would  make  community  music 
a  reality,  and  would  doubtless  so  foster  the  love 
of  the  art  as  eventually  to  affect  the  whole 
musical  situation.  Any  one  who  has  ever  had 
personal  experience  of  bringing  fine  music  to 
those  who  cannot  afford  to  attend  concerts 
knows  that  such  people  are  as  keen  for  the 
best  as  are  those  who  can  afford  it.  There  is 
no  one  so  quick  to  appreciate  the  best  as 
the  person  who  lives  apart  from  all  those 

[ 


Music  AND  LIFE 

social  usages  of  ours  which  constitute  our  silk- 
spun  cocoons.  There  we  lie  snugly  ensconced, 
protected  from  sharp  winds,  completely  en- 
shrouded, while  these  other  folk  are  battling 
with  life  itself.  We  may  be  satisfied  with  a 
gleam  or  two  through  the  mesh;  they  are  not. 
They  meet  reality  on  every  hand  and  know 
it  when  they  see  it.  No  make-believe  can  de- 
ceive them. 

And  when  I  say  this  I  mean  that  the  experi- 
ment has  been  tried  over  and  over  again.  In 
what  are  called  "the  slums"  of  the  greatest 
American  and  English  cities  I  have  seen  hun- 
dreds and  even  thousands  of  poor  people  lis- 
tening to  the  music  of  Beethoven,  and  to  a 
few  simple  words  about  it  in  rapt  and  tense 
silence,  and  have  heard  them  break  out  into 
such  unrestrained  applause  as  comes  only  from 
those  who  are  really  hungry  for  good  music. 
Put  a  good  orchestra  into  any  one  of  these 
places  and  you  will  find  the  best  kind  of  an 
audience.  Such  people  have  no  taint  of  hyper- 
criticism,  no  desire  to  talk  wisely  about  the 
latest  composer.  They  have  not  constructed 
for  themselves  a  nice  little  aesthetic  formula 
which  will  fit  everything  —  a  sort  of  pro- 

[ 


COMMUNITY  Music 

tective  coloring;  their  minds  are  not  "made 
» 

up- 
Let  us  not  misunderstand  this  situation.   I 

am  not  writing  about  painting  or  sculpture,  for 
I  know  that  these  arts  involve  certain  percep- 
tive and  selective  qualities  of  the  mind  which 
require  long  training.  I  am  writing  about  mu- 
sic, which  appeals  to  a  sense  differentiated  and 
trained  long  before  the  sense  for  color-vibra- 
tion or  for  beauty  of  form  was  developed,  a 
sense  which  we  possess  in  a  highly  developed 
state  in  very  childhood. 

Imagine  a  small  opera  house  in  the  lower 
East  Side  of  New  York  or  in  the  North  End  or 
South  End  of  Boston,  which  the  people  there 
might  frequent  at  sums  within  their  means; 
imagine  a  small  Western  city  with  such  an 
opera  house;  and  compare  the  probable  results 
with  those  now  attained  by  our  gorgeous  and 
needlessly  expensive  operatic  performances 
which,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  leave  little 
behind  them  but  a  financial  vacuum,  and  a  dim 
idea  that  somehow  opera  means  famous  "  stars  " 
singing  in  a  highly  exaggerated  manner  in  a 
strange  language,  in  stranger  dramas,  where 
motives  and  purposes  are  stranger  still.  Con- 

[   139  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

certs  and  operatic  performances  such  as  I  have 
advocated  would  supplement  and  complete  our 
own  musical  activities.  These  paid  artists  would 
be  playing  and  singing  to  us  in  a  language  we 
ourselves  had  learned  by  using  it.  Music  would 
be  domestic;  we  should  understand  it  better 
and  love  it  more. 

I  am  familiar  with  the  old  argument  that 
concerts  and  operas  so  conducted  would  not 
pay.  To  this  I  reply  that  it  is  probably  true. 
Does  settlement  work  pay  ?  Does  a  library  pay  ? 
Does  any  altruistic  endeavor  anywhere  pay? 
No;  nothing  of  this  sort  ever  shows  a  money 
balance  on  the  right  side  of  the  ledger.  But 
we  do  not  keep  that  column  in  figures.  It  foots 
up  in  joy,  not  in  dollars.  The  best  kind  of 
social  "uplift"  would  be  something  that  made 
people  happier.  The  real  uplift  is  of  the  soul, 
not  of  the  body.  Let  a  rift  of  beauty  pierce 
the  dull  scene.  Let  us  have  a  taste  of  heaven 
now;  and  let  it  be  not  yours  or  mine,  but 
theirs.  In  music  everybody  makes  his  own 
heaven  at  the  time. 

But  it  is  not  money  that  is  lacking.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  are  annually  spent  to  make 
up  the  deficits  of  our  symphony  orchestras. 


COMMUNITY  Music 

Millions  are  spent  for  the  physical  well-being 
of  our  poorer  people.  Beauty  for  the  well-to- 
do,  who  are,  like  as  not,  too  well-to-do  to  care 
much  for  it;  materialistic  benefits  for  the  poor 
and  unfortunate,  who  are  fairly  starving  for 
something  bright  and  joyous.  What  would  it 
not  mean  to  these  latter  were  they  able  to  go 
once  a  week  to  a  hall  in  their  own  part  of  the 
city,  to  hear  a  fine  concert  at  a  fee  well  within 
their  means,  and  to  know  that  there  would  be 
no  chairman  there  to  tell  them  "  what  a  great 
privilege,"  etc.,  but  that  they  would  be  let 
alone  to  enjoy  themselves  in  their  own  way. 
These,  after  all,  make  up  the  great  body  of 
our  city  populations;  from  these  humble  homes 
come  the  future  American  citizens;  in  some 
ways  they  are  superior  to  us,  for  they  survive 
a  much  harder  battle,  and  preserve  their  self- 
respect  in  face  of  enormous  difficulties.  Why 
should  we  dole  out  to  them  what  we  think 
they  need  ?  Why  not  offer  them  something 
that  puts  us  all  on  the  same  level  ? 

The  inevitable  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
an  investigation  of  our  musical  situation  is  that 
we  need  only  opportunities  of  expressing  our- 
selves. Every  village  contains  a  potential  sing- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

ing  society,  every  church  contains  a  potential 
choir,  every  family  in  which  there  are  children 
might  sing  simple  songs  together.  There  is  a 
singing  club  hidden  away  in  every  neighbor- 
hood. Every  city  might  have,  on  occasion, 
thousands  of  people  singing  fine  songs  and 
hymns.  What  is  the  present  need?  Leaders: 
educated  musicians  who  have  learned  the  tech- 
nique of  their  art  and  have,  at  the  same  time, 
learned  Jc^  understand  and  appreciate  the  great- 
est  music,  and  who  prefer  it  to  any  other. 
Our  institutions  for  training  musicians  are 
sending  out  a  continual  stream  of  graduates, 
many  of  whom  begin  their  labors  in  small 
towns  and  cities.  Nearly  every  community 
has  at  least  one  man  who  has  sufficient  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  music  to  direct  groups  of 
singers,  large  and  small.  What  kind  of  music 
does  he,  in  his  heart,  prefer  ?  The  answer  is  to 
be  read  in  programmes  here  and  there,  in  the 
record  of  unsuccessful  singing  societies,  in  the 
public  performances  of  "  show  pieces."  Should 
not  our  institutions  pay  more  attention  to 
forming  the  taste  of  their  students  ?  Is  it  really 
necessary  to  teach  them  technique  through 
bad  examples  of  the  art  of  music  ?  Can  they 

[  14*] 


COMMUNITY  Music 

safely  spend  several  years  dealing  with  dis- 
tinctly inferior  music  for  the  sake  of  a  facile 
technique  ?  Is  rhetoric  or  oratory  superior  to 
literature  ?  There  is  no  such  thing  as  teaching 
violin  or  piano-playing  and  teaching  music. 
If  the  violin  or  piano  teaching  deals  with  poor 
music  which  the  pupil  practices  several  hours 
a  day,  no  lessons  in  musical  history,  theory, 
form,  or  aesthetics  can  counteract  the  effect  of 
that  constant  association.  We  cannot  advance 
without  leaders.  We  look  to  the  training 
schools  for  them.  And  these  schools  cannot 
expect  to  supply  them  to  us  unless  they  so 
conduct  their  teaching  as  to  develop  in  stu- 
dents a  love  and  understanding  of  the  best. 

This  article,  then,  expresses  my  conviction 
that  the  average  American  man  or  woman  is 
potentially  musical.  I  believe  the  world  of 
music  to  be  a  true  democracy.  I  am  convmced 
that  our  chief  need  is  tQ^nqak^-iniLsLc.ouf&eiv^&r 
I  believe  that  under  right  conditions  we  should 
enjoy  doing  so;  I  think  all  art  is  closely  re- 
lated to  the  sum  of  human  consciousness. 
And  just  as  I  see  great  music  based  on  what  we 
are  and  what  we  feel,  so  I  see  the  expert  per- 
formance of  music  as  being  merely  our  own 


Music  AND  LIFE 

performance  magnified  and  beautified  by  ex- 
treme skill.  I  see,  in  short,  a  necessary  and  nat- 
ural connection  between  ourselves  and  both 
composer  and  performer.  I  believe  that  all  the 
great  pictures  and  sculpture  and  music  lay  first 
in  the  general  consciousness  and  then  became 
articulate  in  one  man.  I  believe  no  statesman, 
no  philosopher,  no,  not  even  a  Christ,  to  be 
conceivable  save  as  he  lies  first  in  men's  hearts. 
What  they  are  in  posse  he  is  in  esse.  That  we 
all  are  more  musical  than  we  are  thought  to 
be;  that  we  are  more  musical  than  we  get  the 
chance  to  be  —  of  this  there  is  no  doubt  what- 
ever. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  OPERA 

I.    WHAT  IS  OPERA? 

THE  form  of  drama  with  music  which  we 
loosely  call  "opera  "  is  such  a  curious  mixture 
of  many  elements  —  some  of  them  closely  re- 
lated, others  nearly  irreconcilable  —  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  arrive  at  any  definite  idea 
of  its  artistic  value.  A  great  picture  or  piece 
of  sculpture,  a  great  book  or  a  great  sym- 
phony represents  a  perfectly  clear  evolution 
of  a  well-defined  art.  You  do  not  question  the 
artistic  validity  of  "  Pendennis  "  or  of  a  por- 
trait by  Romney  ;  they  have  their  roots  in  the 
earlier  works  of  great  writers  and  painters  and 
they  tend  toward  those  which  follow.  The  arts 
they  represent  grew  by  a  slow  process  of 
evolution,  absorbing  everything  that  was  use- 
ful to  them  and  rejecting  everything  useless, 
until  they  finally  became  consistent  and  self- 
contained.  The  development  of  opera,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  been  a  continual  compromise 

[  Hi  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

—  with  the  whims  of  princes,  with  the  even 
more  wayward  whims  of  singers,  and  with  so- 
cial conventions. 

Its  increasing  costliness  (due  sometimes  to 
the  composer's  grandiloquence  and  sometimes 
to  the  demands  of  the  public)  has  necessitated 
producing  it  in  huge  opera  houses  entirely  un- 
suited  to  it;  and,  being  a  mixed  art,  it  has 
been  subject  to  two  different  influences  which 
have  not  by  any  means  always  been  in  agree- 
ment. Its  life-line  has  been  crossed  over  and 
over  again  by  daring  innovators  who,  forget- 
ting the  past,  have  sought  to  force  it  away 
from  nature  and  to  make  it  an  expression  of 
excessive  individualism.  Methods  which  would 
find  oblivion  quickly  enough  in  any  pure  form 
of  art  have  been  carried  out  in  opera,  and 
have  been  supported  by  an  uncritical  public 
pleased  by  a  gorgeous  spectacle  or  entertained 
by  fine  singing.  All  the  other  art-forms  pro- 
gress step  by  step ;  opera  leaps  first  forward, 
then  backward ;  it  becomes  too  reasonable, 
only  to  become  immediately  afterward  entirely 
unreasonable;  it  passes  from  objectivity  to 
subjectivity  and  back  again,  or  employs  both 
at  the  same  time  ;  it  turns  a  man  into  a  woman, 


THE  OPERA 

or  a  woman  into  a  man;  it  thinks  nothing  of 
being  presented  in  two  languages  at  once;  it 
turns  colloquial  Bret  Harte  into  Italian  with- 
out the  slightest  realization  of  having  become, 
in  the  process,  essentially  comic :  in  short, 
there  seems  no  limit  to  the  havoc  it  can  play 
with  geography,  science,  language,  costume, 
drama,  music,  and  human  nature  itself. 

Any  attempt,  therefore,  to  deal  here  with 
the  development  of  opera  as  a  whole  would 
be  an  impossible  undertaking.  We  should  be- 
come at  once  involved  in  a  glossary  of  singers 
(now  only  names,  then  in  effect  constituting 
the  opera  itself),  an  unsnarling  of  impossible 
plots,  an  excursion  into  religion,  into  the  bal- 
let, into  mythology,  demonology,  pseudo- 
philosophy,  mysticism,  and  Heaven  knows 
what  else.  We  should  see  our  first  flock  of 
canary  birds,  —  released  simply  to  make  us 
gape,  —  and  we  should  hear  a  forest  bird  tell 
the  hero  (through  the  medium  of  a  singer  off 
the  stage)  the  way  to  a  sleeping  beauty ;  we 
should  hear  the  hero  and  the  villain  sing  a 
delightful  duet  and  then  see  them  turn  away 
in  different  directions  to  seek  and  murder  each 
other;  we  should  find  the  Pyramids  and  the 

[   '47] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Latin  Quarter  expressible  in  the  same  terms ; 
our  heroines  would  include  the  mysterious  and 
demoniac  scoffer,  Kundry,  the  woman  who 
doubts  and  questions,  the  woman  who  should 
have  but  did  not,  and  the  woman  who  goes 
mad  and  turns  the  flute-player  in  the  orchestra 
to  madness  with  her;  we  should  see  men  and 
women,  attired  in  inappropriate  and  even  un- 
intelligible costumes,  drink  out  of  empty  cups, 
and  a  hero  mortally  wound  a  papier-mache 
dragon  ;  we  should  have  to  shut  our  eyes  in 
order  to  hear,  or  stop  our  ears  in  order  to  see; 
if  we  cared  for  music,  we  should  have  to  wait 
ten  minutes  for  a  domestic  quarrel  in  recitative 
to  finish ;  if  we  cared  for  drama,  we  should 
have  to  wait  the  same  length  of  time  while 
a  prima  donna  tossed  off  birdling  trills  and 
chirpings.  We  should,  in  short,  find  ourselves 
dealing  with  a  mixed  art  of  quite  extraordinary 
latitude  in  style,  form,  dramatic  purpose,  and 
musical  texture. 

It  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purposes,  there- 
fore, to  state  that  both  sacred  and  secular 
plays  with  music  have  existed  from  the  earli- 
est times,  and  that  their  development  has 
tended  toward  the  form  as  we  now  know  it. 

[  148  1 


THE  OPERA 

The  introduction  of  songs  into  plays  was,  in 
itself,  so  agreeable  and  interesting  that  their 
use  continually  increased  until  some  vague 
operatic  form  was  reached  in  which  music  pre- 
dominated. 

But  there  are  two  great  revolutionary  epochs 
to  which  proper  attention  must  be  paid  if  we 
are  to  understand  opera  at  all.  The  first  of 
these  is  the  so-called  "  Florentine  Revolu- 
tion" in  the  years  1595  to  1600,  and  the  sec- 
ond is  the  Wagnerian  reform  in  the  middle 
of  the  last  century. 

II.    OPERA  IN  THE  OLD  STYLE 

The  "  Florentine  Revolution  "  was  an  at- 
tempt to  create  an  entirely  new  type  of  opera 
in  which  all  tradition  was  thrown  to  the  winds. 
To  "  Eurydice,"  the  best  known  of  these 
Florentine  operas,  its  composer,  Peri,  wrote 
a  preface,  from  which  we  quote  the  follow- 
ing :  "  Therefore,  abandoning  every  style  of 
vocal  writing  known  hitherto,  I  gave  myself 
up  wholly  to  contriving  the  sort  of  imitation 
(of  speech)  demanded  by  this  poem."  (Is 
this,  indeed,  Peri  speaking?  Or  is  it  Gluck, 
or  Wagner,  or  Debussy  ?)  In  any  case,  the 


Music  AND  LIFE 

abandonment,  in  any  form  of  human  expres- 
sion, of  every  style  known  hitherto  is  a  fatal 
abandonment,  for  no  art,  or  'science,  or  liter- 
ature can  throw  away  its  past  and  live.  The 
Florentine  Revolution  was  not  revolution, 
but  riot,  for  it  undertook  to  tear  down  what 
generations  had  been  slowly  building  up,  and 
to  substitute  in  its  place  something  not  only 
untried  but  (at  that  time)  impossible.  It  was 
an  attempt  to  found  a  new  art  entirely  de- 
tached from  an  old  one.  Beethoven  without 
Haydn  and  Mozart,  Meredith  without  Field- 
ing, the  Gothic  without  the  Classical,  a  Re- 
naissance without  a  birth,  daylight  without 
sunrise.  It  was  an  entirely  illogical  proceeding 
from  first  to  last,  but  opera  came  forth  from 
it  because  opera  can  subsist  —  it  has,  and 
does  —  without  logic  or  even  reasonableness. 
There  had  been  composed  before  the  year 
1600  the  most  beautiful  sacred  music  the 
world  possesses  —  that  which  culminated  in 
the  works  of  Palestrina.  A  style  or  method  of 
expression  had  been  perfected,  and  this  style 
or  method  was  gradually  and  naturally  being 
applied  to  secular  and  even  to  dramatic  forms. 
There  were  at  that  time,  also,  songs  of  the 

[  '50] 


THE  OPERA 

people  which  had  been  often  used  in  plays 
with  music,  and  which  might  have  supplied  a 
basis  for  opera.  But  the  creators  of  the  new 
opera  would  have  none  of  these.  They  had  a 
theory  (fatal  possession  for  any  artist):  they 
wanted  to  revive  the  Greek  drama,  and  they 
believed  that,  in  opera,  music  should  be  sub- 
servient to  the  text.  It  was  Peri  and  his  asso- 
ciates who  first  saw  this  will-o'-the-wisp,  which 
has  since  become  completely  embodied  into  a 
fully  equipped  and  valiant  bugaboo  to  frighten 
and  subdue  those  who  love  music  for  music's 
sake.  All  that  one  needs  to  say  on  this  point 
is  that  there  is  no  great  opera  in  existence, 
save  alone  "  Pelleas  et  Melisande "  by  De- 
bussy, in  which  the  music  is  not  supreme  over 
the  text  (and  Debussy's  opera  is  unique  in  its 
treatment  and  leads  nowhere  —  or,  if  any- 
where, away  from  opera).  Peri's  reforms  were 
artistically  unreasonable,  but  the  composers 
who  followed  him  gradually  evolved  what  is 
called  the  aria  or  operatic  song  and  did  even- 
tually make  a  more  or  less  coherent  operatic 
form,  although  a  long  time  passed  before  opera 
unified  in  itself  the  various  elements  necessary 
to  artistic  completeness. 

[  '5'  1 


Music  AND  LIFE 

It  was  only  a  short  time,  however,  before 
opera  attained  the  widest  favor  all  over  Eu- 
rope, a  favor  which  it  has  enjoyed  from  that 
day  to  this.  The  reasons  for  this  never-waning 
popularity  are  found  first  in  the  natural  pref- 
erence on  the  part  of  the  public  for  the  hu- 
man voice  over  any  instrument.  For  whatever 
facility  of  technique  or  felicity  of  expression 
musical  instruments  may  have,  they  lack  the 
intimate  human  quality  of  the  singing  voice. 
The  voice  comes  to  the  listener  in  terms  of 
himself,  whereas  an  instrument  may  be  strange 
and  unsympathetic  and  awaken  no  response. 
So  complete  is  this  sympathy  between  the 
singer  and  listener  that  almost  any  singer  with 
a  fine  voice  (she  is,  very  likely,  called  a  "  hu- 
man nightingale")  is  sure  to  attract  an  audi- 
ence, no  matter  what  she  sings  or  how  little 
musical  intelligence  she  shows.  (It  is  this  sym- 
pathy, too,  which  inflicts  on  us  the  drawing- 
room  song,  the  last  word  in  utter  vacuity.) 
Coupled  with  this  is  the  delight  the  public 
takes  in  extraordinary  vocal  feats  of  agility. 
The  singer  vies  with  a  flute  in  the  orchestra, 
or  sings  two  or  three  notes  higher  than  any 
other  singer  has  ever  sung,  and  the  public 

[    'S2'] 


THE  OPERA 

crowds  to  hear  her.  But  it  is  useless  to  dwell 
on  this :  the  disease  is  incurable ;  there  will 
always  be,  I  fear,  an  unthinking  public  ready 
for  any  vocal  gymnast  who  sings  higher  or 
faster  than  anybody  else,  or  who  can  toss  off 
trills  and  runs  with  a  smiling  face  and  a  pretty 
costume,  and  in  entirely  unintelligible  words. 
And,  second,  when  this  singing,  which  the 
public  dearly  loves,  is  coupled  with  the  per- 
ennial fascination  of  the  drama,  the  appeal  is 
irresistible. 

I  do  not  need  to  dwell  here  on  the  quality 
in  the  drama  which  has  made  it  popular  from 
the  remotest  time  until  now.  One  can  say  this, 
however :  that  to  people  who  are  incapable  of 
re-creating  a  world  of  beauty  in  their  own 
minds  — although  nature  surrounds  them  with 
it,  and  imaginative  literature  is  in  every  library 
—  the  stage  is  a  perpetual  delight.  There  they 
behold  impossible  romances,  incredible  virtues 
and  vices,  heroes  and  heroines  foully  persecuted 
but  inevitably  triumphant,  impossible  scenes 
in  improbable  countries,  everything  left  out 
that  is  tiresome  and  habitual  and  necessitous, 
no  blare  of  daylight  but  only  golden  sunrise 
and  flaming  sunset:  the  impossible  realized 

[  '53  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

at  last.  These  qualities  are  in  all  drama  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  for  they  embody  the 
essence  of  what  the  drama  is.  ./Eschylus  and 
Shakespeare  divest  life  of  its  prose  as  com- 
pletely as  does  a  raging  melodrama,  for  a  play 
must  move  from  one  dramatic  and  salient  point 
to  another;  and  while  those  great  dramatists 
imply  the  whole  of  life,  —  whereas  the  ordi- 
nary play  implies  nothing,  —  they  do  not  and 
cannot  present  it  in  its  actual  and  complete 
continuity. 

Now  the  drama  is  subject  more  or  less  to 
public  opinion  and  to  public  taste,  because  in 
the  drama  we  understand  what  we  are  hearing. 
On  the  other  hand  the  opera,  considered  as 
drama,  is  almost  free  from  any  such  responsi- 
bility, because  it  is  sung  in  a  foreign  language  ; 
or  if,  by  chance,  in  our  own  tongue,  the  size 
of  the  opera  house  and  the  disinclination  of 
singers  to  pay  any  attention  to  their  diction 
renders  the  text  unintelligible.  So  the  libretto 
of  the  opera  escapes  scrutiny.  "  What  is  too 
silly  to  be  said  is  sung,"  says  Voltaire. 

Let  us  note  also  that  when  an  art  becomes 
detached  from  its  own  past,  when  it  is  not 
based  on  natural  human  life,  and  does  not 

[  '54] 


THE  OPERA 

obey  those  general  laws  to  which  all  art  is  sub- 
ject, it  is  sure  to  evolve  conventions  of  one 
sort  or  another  and  to  become  artificial.  This 
is  to  be  observed  in  what  is  called  the  "  rococo  " 
style  of  architecture,  as  well  as  in  the  terrible 
objects  perpetrated  by  the  "futurists"  and 
"cubists  "  (anything  that  is  of  the  future  must 
also  be  of  the  past,  no  matter  whether  it  is  a 
picture,  or  a  tree,  or  an  idea).  Opera  was  soon 
in  the  grip  of  these  conventions  from  which, 
with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  it  has  never 
escaped.  Even  the  common  conventions  of 
the  drama,  which  we  accept  readily  enough, 
are  in  opera  stretched  to  the  breaking  point. 
For  many  generations  operas  were  planned 
according  to  a  set,  inflexible  scheme  of  acts  ;  a 
woman  took  a  man's  part  (as  in  Gounod's 
"  Faust  ") ;  characters  were  stereotyped  ;  the 
position  of  the  chief  aria  (solo)  for  the  prima 
donna  was  exactly  determined  so  as  to  give  to 
her  entrance  all  possible  impressiveness  ;  the 
set  musical  pieces  (solos,  duets,  choruses,  and 
so  forth)  were  arranged  artificially  and  not  to 
satisfy  any  dramatic  necessity.  There  is  some 
justness  in  Wagner's  saying  that  the  old  con- 
ventional opera  was  "  a  concert  in  costume." 


Music  AND  LIFE 

An  example  of  this  conventionality  and  lack 
of  dramatic  unity  may  be  found  in  the  famous 
quartette  scene  in  Verdi's  "  Rigoletto,"  an 
opera  which  is  typical  of  the  Italian  style  (in 
which,  in  Meredith's  phrase,  "there  is  much 
dallying  with  beauty  in  the  thick  of  sweet  an- 
guish ").  In  this  scene  there  are  two  persons 
in  hiding  to  watch  two  others.  The  conceal- 
ment is  the  hinge  upon  which,  for  the  mo- 
ment, the  story  swings.  But  the  exigencies  of 
the  music  are  such  that,  before  the  piece  has  pro- 
gressed very  far,  all  four  are  singing  at  the  top 
of  their  lungs  and  with  no  pretext  of  conceal- 
ment—  in  a  charming  piece  of  music,  indeed, 
but  quite  divested  of  dramatic  truth  and  unity. 
And  then,  naturally  enough,  the  thin  veneer 
of  drama  having  been  pierced,  they  answer 
your  applause  by  joining  hands  and  bowing, 
after  which  the  two  conceal  themselves  again, 
the  music  strikes  up  as  before,  and  the  whole 
scene  is  repeated. 

But  one  of  the  most  artificial  elements  in 
the  old  operas  was  the  ballet.  Its  part  in  the 
opera  scheme  was  purely  to  be  a  spectacle,  and 
great  sums  were  lavishly  spent  to  make  it  as 
gorgeous  as  possible.  It  had  usually  nothing 


THE  OPERA 

whatever  to  do  with  the  story,  but  was  useful 
in  drawing  an  audience  of  pleasure-lovers  who 
did  not  take  opera  seriously.  Once  upon  a 
time,  in  London,  by  an  extraordinary  unlucky 
stroke  of  fate,  Carlyle  was  persuaded  to  go  to 
hear  an  opera  containing  a  ballet ;  whereupon 
he  fulminated  as  follows :  "  The  very  ballet 
girls,  with  their  muslin  saucers  round  them, 
were  perhaps  little  short  of  miraculous;  whirl- 
ing and  spinning  there  in  strange  mad  vor- 
texes, and  then  suddenly  fixing  themselves 
motionless,  each  upon  her  left  or  right  great 
toe,  with  the  other  leg  stretched  out  at  an 
angle  of  ninety  degrees  —  as  if  you  had  sud- 
denly pricked  into  the  floor,  by  one  of  their 
points,  a  pair,  or  rather  a  multitudinous  co- 
hort, of  mad  restlessly  jumping  and  clipping 
scissors,  and  so  bidden  them  rest,  with  open 
blades,  and  stand  still  in  the  Devil's  name!" 
One  remembers,  also,  "  War  and  Peace," 
with  its  scene  at  the  opera  —  and  Tolsto'i's 
reference  to  the  chief  male  dancer  as  getting 
"  sixty  thousand  francs  a  year  for  cutting  ca- 
pers." So,  looking  over  the  older  operas  which 
still  hold  their  place  in  the  repertoire,  we  think 
of  them  as  rather  absurd,  and  comfort  our- 

[  '57  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

selves  with  the  reflection  that  to-day  opera  has 
outgrown  its  youthful  follies  and  has  become 
a  work  of  art. 

III.    WAGNER  AND  AFTER 

Then  came  the  second  great  operatic  re- 
form,—  that  of  Wagner,  —  which  was  sup- 
posed to  free  us  from  the  old  absurdities  and 
make  of  opera  a  reasonable  and  congruous 
thing.  This,  Wagner's  operas,  at  the  outset, 
bade  fair  to  be.  In  "  Der  Fliegende  Hol- 
lander," "  Tannhauser,"  and  "  Lohengrin  " 
there  is  a  reasonable  correspondence  between 
the  action  and  the  music ;  we  can  listen  and 
look  without  too  great  disruption  of  our  fac- 
ulties. Wagner's  librettos  are,  with  one  excep- 
tion, based  on  mythological  stories  or  ideas. 
His  personages  are  eternal  types  —  Lohengrin 
of  purity  and  heroism,  Wotan  of  power  by 
fiat,  Brunhilde  (greatest  of  them  all)  of  heroic 
and  noble  womanhood.  He  adopted  the  old 
device  by  means  of  which  certain  salient  qual- 
ities in  his  characters  —  such  as  Siegfried's 
youth  and  fearlessness,  Wotan's  majesty,  and 
so  forth  —  were  defined  by  short  phrases  of 
music  called  leit-motifs ;  he  made  his  orchestra 


THE  OPERA 

eloquent  of  the  movement  of  his  drama,  in- 
stead of  employing  it  as  a  "  huge  guitar  "  ;  he 
eliminated  the  set  musical  piece,  which  was 
bound  to  delay  the  action  ;  he  kept  his  music 
always  moving  onward  by  avoiding  the  so- 
called  "authentic  cadence,"  which  in  all  the 
older  music  perpetually  cries  a  halt. 

But  by  all  these  means  Wagner  imposed  on 
his  listener  a  constant  strain  of  attention  :  leit- 
motifs recurring,  developing,  and  disintegrat- 
ing, every  note  significant,  a  huge  and  eloquent 
orchestra,  a  voice  singing  phrases  which  are 
not  parts  of  a  complete  melody  then  and  there 
being  evolved,  —  as  in  an  opera  by  Verdi, — 
but  which  are  related  to  something  first  heard 
perhaps  half  an  hour  before  in  a  preceding  act 
(or  a  week  before  in  another  drama)  :  we  have 
all  this  to  strain  every  possibility  of  our  appre- 
ciative faculty,  and  at  the  same  time  he  asks  us 
to  watch  an  actual  combat  between  a  hero  and 
a  dragon,  or  to  observe  another  between  two 
heroes  half  in  the  clouds  with  a  God  resplend- 
ent stretching  out  a  holy  spear  to  end  the  duel 
as  he  wills  it,  while  a  Valkyrie  hovers  above 
on  her  flying  steed.  Or  he  sets  his  drama  under 
water,  with  Undines  swimming  about  and  a 

[  '59  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

gnome  clambering  the  slippery  rocks  to  filch 
a  jewel  in  exchange  for  his  soul.  Yes,  even 
this,  and  more ;  for  he  asks  us  to  witness  the 
end  of  the  world  —  the  waters  rising,  the  very 
heavens  aflame  —  when  our  heart  is  so  torn 
by  the  stupendous  inner  tragedy  of  Brunhilde's 
immolation  that  the  end  of  the  world  seems 
utterly  and  completely  irrevelant  and  imper- 
tinent. 

After  all,  we  are  human.  We  cannot  be  men 
and  women  and,  at  the  same  time,  children. 
We  should  like  to  crouch  down  in  our  seat  in 
the  opera  house  and  forget  everything  save 
the  noble,  splendid,  and  beautiful  music,  see- 
ing only  just  so  much  action  as  would  accord 
with  our  state  of  inner  exaltation.  An  opera 
must  be  objective  or  subjective ;  it  cannot  be 
both  at  the  same  time.  The  perfection  of"  Don 
Giovanni "  is  due  to  the  exact  equality  be- 
tween the  amount  and  intensity  of  the  action 
and  of  the  musical  expression  —  or,  in  other 
words,  to  the  complete  union  of  matter  and 
manner,  of  form  and  style.  The  "  Ring  "  cycle 
is  objective  and  subjective;  it  is  the  extreme 
of  stage  mechanism  (and  more),  and,  at  the 
same  time,  everything  that  is  imaginatively 


THE  OPERA 

profound  and  moving.  It  is  impossible  to 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  Wagner  in  those 
great  music-dramas  lost  sight  of  the  balance 
between  means  and  ends,  and  the  proportion 
between  action  and  thought.  His  own  theories, 
and  the  magnitude  of  his  subject,  led  him  to 
forget  the  natural  limitations  which  are  im- 
posed upon  a  work  of  art  by  the  very  nature 
of  those  beings  for  whom  it  was  created.  The 
"Ring  "  dramas  should  be  both  acted  and  wit- 
nessed by  gods  and  goddesses  for  whom  time 
and  space  do  not  exist,  and  who  are  not  limited 
by  a  precarious  nervous  system.  No  one  can 
be  insensitive  to  the  great  beauty  of  certain 
portions  of  these  gigantic  music-dramas,  — 
every  one  recognizes  Wagner's  genius  as  it 
shows  itself,  for  example,  in  either  of  the  great 
scenes  between  Siegfried  and  Brunhilde,  —  but 
the  intricate  and  well-nigh  impossible  stage 
mechanism  and  the  excursions  into  the  written 
drama  constitute  serious  defects.  (For  the 
scene  between  Wotan  and  Fricka  in  "  Das 
Rheingold  "  and  similar  passages  in  the  suc- 
ceeding dramas  are  essentially  scenes  to  be 
read  rather  than  acted.) 

One  would  suppose  that  Wagner  had  made 


Music  AND  LIFE 

impossible  any  repetition  of  the  old  operatic 
incongruities.  Quite  the  contrary  is  the  case. 
One  of  the  latest  Italian  operas  is,  if  anything, 
more  absurd  than  any  of  its  predecessors. 
What  could  be  more  grotesque  than  an  opera 
whose  scene  is  in  a  mining  camp  in  the  West, 
whose  characters  include  a  gambler,  a  sheriff, 
a  woman  of  the  camp,  and  so  forth,  whose 
language  is  perforce  very  much  in  the  ver- 
nacular, whose  plot  hinges  on  a  game  of  cards, 
—  an  "  Outcast-of-Poker-Flat "  opera,  —  and 
this  translated,  for  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
poser, into  Italian  and  produced  in  that  lan- 
guage ?  "I'm  dead  gone  on  you,  Minnie," 
says  Ranee;  "ft  voglio  benet  Minnie"  sings 
his  Italian  counterpart. 

"  Rigoletto"  does  entrance  us  by  the  beauty 
and  the  sincerity  of  its  melodies ;  it  is  what 
it  pretends  to  be;  it  deals  with  emotions 
which  we  can  share  because  they  derive  ulti- 
mately from  great  human  issues.  The  Count, 
Magdalina,  Rigoletto, and  Gilda  are  all  types; 
we  know  them  well  in  literature  —  in  poetry, 
novel,  and  drama ;  they  are  valid.  We  accept 
the  strained  convention  of  the  scene  as  being 
inevitable  at  that  point  in  the  development  of 


THE   OPERA 

the  opera.  But  after  Wagner's  reforms,  and  the 
influence  they  exerted  on  Verdi  himself,  the 
greatest  of  the  Italians,  it  would  seem  incredi- 
ble that  any  composer  could  lapse  into  a  "  Girl 
of  the  Golden  West." 

Nearly  all  Puccini's  operas  are  a  reversion 
to  type.  The  old-fashioned  lurid  melodrama 
appears  again,  blood-red  as  usual ;  as  in  "  La 
Tosca,"  which  leaves  almost  nothing  to  the 
imagination — one  specially  wishes  that  it  did 
in  certain  scenes.  "  Local  color,"  so-called,  ap- 
pears again  in  all  its  arid  deception  —  as  in  the 
Japanese  effects  in  the  music  of  "  Madame 
Butterfly";  again  we  hear  the  specious  melody 
pretending  to  be  real,  with  its  octaves  in  the 
orchestra  to  give  it  a  sham  intensity.  It  is  the 
old  operatic  world  all  over  again.  When  we 
compare  any  tragic  scene  in  Puccini's  operas 
with  the  last  act  of  Verdi's  "  Otello,"  we  real- 
ize the  vast  difference  between  the  two.  It  is 
true  that  Puccini  gives  us  beautiful  lyric  mo- 
ments—  as  when  Mimi,  in  "  La  Boheme," 
tells  Rudolph  who  she  is;  it  is  true,  also,  that 
we  ought  not  to  cavil  because  Puccini  is  not 
as  great  a  composer  as  Verdi.  Our  compari- 
son is  not  for  the  purpose  of  decrying  one  at 

[  '63  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

the  expense  of  the  other,  but  to  point  out  that 
the  greater  opera  is  not  called  for  by  the  pub- 
lic and  the  lesser  is ;  that  we  get  "  La  Boheme," 
"  Madame  Butterfly,"  and  "  La  Tosca"  twenty 
times  to  "  Otello's  "  once,  and  that  we  thereby 
lose  all  sense  of  operatic  values. 

The  most  trumpeted  operatic  composer  of 
to-day  is  the  worst  of  operatic  sinners.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  debasing  to  music  and  to 
drama  than  the  method  Strauss  employs  in 
"  Electra."  In  its  original  form  "Electra"  is 
a  play  of  profound  significance,  whose  art,  phi- 
losophy, and  ethics  are  a  natural  expression  of 
Greek  life  and  thought.  It  contains  ideas  and 
it  presents  actions  which,  while  totally  alien  to 
us,  we  accept  as  belonging  to  that  life  and 
thought.  In  the  original,  or  in  any  good  trans- 
lation, its  simplicity  and  its  elemental  gran- 
deur are  calculated  to  move  us  deeply,  for  we 
achieve  a  historical  perspective  and  see  the 
meaning  and  significance  of  the  catastrophe 
which  it  presents.  This  great  story  our  mod- 
ern composer  proceeds  to  treat  pathologically. 
Nothing  is  sacred  to  him.  He  invests  every 
passion,  every  fearful  deed  with  a  personal  and 
immediate  significance  which  entirely  destroys 

[  -64] 


THE  OPERA 

its  artistic  and  its  historical  sense.  The  real 
"Electra"  is  an  impersonal,  typical,  national, 
and  religious  drama;  Hofmannsthal  and 
Strauss  have  made  it  into  a  seething  caldron 
of  riotous,  unbridled  passion. 

The  lead  given   bv   Strauss  in  "  Salome," 

o  . 

"  Electra,"  and,  in  different  form  or  type,  in 
"  Der  Rosenkavallier"  has  been  quickly  fol- 
lowed. "The  Jewels  of  the  Madonna"  is  an 
"  Electra"  of  the  boulevard,  in  which  the  worst 
sort  of  passion  and  the  worst  sort  of  sacrilege 
are  flaunted  openly  in  the  name  of  drama.  It 
belongs  in  the  "  Grand  Guignol.*  Let  any 
reasonable  person  read  the  librettos  of  current 
operas  and  form  an  opinion,  not  of  their  mor- 
als,—  for  there  is  only  one  opinion  about  that, 
—  but  of  their  claims  on  the  attention  of  any 
serious-minded  person. 

I  refer  to  the  moral  status  of  these  stories 
only  because  many  of  them  stress  the  abnor- 
mal and  lack  a  sense  of  proportion.  Art  seeks 
the  truth  wherever  it  be,  but  the  truth  is  the 
whole  truth  and  not  a  segment  of  it.  A  novel 
may  represent  almost  any  phase  of  life,  but  it 
must  keep  a  sense  of  proportion.  Dostoievsky 
pushes  the  abnormal  to  the  extreme  limit,  but 

[  165  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

on  the  other  hand  he  is  "  a  brother  to  his  vil- 
lains" and  he  gives  us  plenty  of  redeeming 
types.  The  hero  in  "The  Idiot"  is  a  pre- 
dominating and  overbalancing  character.  The 
object  of  all  great  literature  is  to  present  the 
truth  in  terms  of  beauty.  "  Tess  of  the  D'Urb- 
ervilles"  is  as  moral  as  "Emma."  But  the 
further  one  gets  from  a  deliberate  form  of  art- 
istic expression  like  the  novel,  the  less  latitude 
one  has  in  this  respect.  An  episode  in  a  novel 
of  Dostoievsky  would  be  an  impossible  sub- 
ject for  a  picture.  So  opera,  which  focuses  it- 
self for  us  in  the  stage  frame  and  within  a 
limited  time,  must  somehow  preserve  for  itself 
this  truthfulness  and  fidelity  to  life  as  it  is. 
"The  Jewels  of  the  Madonna"  might  serve 
as  an  episode  in  a  novel  of  Dostoievsky,  or  of 
Balzac ;  as  an  opera  libretto  it  is  a  monstrosity. 

IV.    WHEN  MUSIC  AND   DRAMA  ARE  FITLY 
JOINED 

I  have  referred  to  these  various  inconsist- 
encies and  absurdities  of  opera,  not  with  the 
idea  of  making  out  a  case  against  it;  on  the 
contrary,  I  want  to  make  out  a  case  for  it. 
This  obviously  can  be  done  only  by  means 
[  '66  ] 


THE   OPERA 

of  operas  which  are  guiltless  of  absurdities  and 
of  melodramatic  exaggeration,  which  answer 
the  requirements  of  artistic  reasonableness,  and 
are,  at  the  same  time,  beautiful.  This  cannot 
be  said  of  "  Cavalleria  Rus*ticana"  (Rustic 
Chivalry  —  Heaven  save  the  mark  !),  "  La  Bo- 
heme,"  "  La  Tosca,"  "  The  Girl  of  the  Golden 
West,"  "Thais"  (poison,  infidelity,  suicide, 
sorcery,  and  religion  mixed  up  in  an  intoler- 
able melange],  "  Contes  d'Hoffman"  (a  Don 
Juan  telling  his  adventures  in  detail)  —  these 
are  bad  art,  not  because  they  are  immoral,  but 
because  they  are  untrue,  distorted,  without 
sense  of  the  value  of  the  material  they  employ. 
Operas  which  are  both  beautiful  and  rea- 
sonable do  exist,  and  one  or  two  of  them  are 
actually  in  our  present-day  repertoire.  The 
questions  we  have  to  ask  are  these :  Can  a 
highly  imaginative  and  significant  drama,  in 
which  action  and  reflection  hold  a  proper  bal- 
ance, in  which  some  great  and  moving  passion 
or  some  elemental  human  motives  find  true 
dramatic  expression  —  can  such  a  drama  exist 
as  opera?  Is  it  possible  to  preserve  the  body 
and  the  spirit  of  drama  and  at  the  same  time 
to  preserve  the  body  and  spirit  of  music  ? 

[  '67  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Does  not  one  of  these  have  to  give  way  to  the 
other  ?  We  want  opera  to  be  one  thing,  and 
lot  several.  We  want  the  same  unity  which 
exists  in  other  artistic  forms.  We  want  to  sep- 
arate classic,  romantic,  and  realistic.  If  opera 
changes  from  blank  verse  to  rhymed  verse,  so 
to  speak,  we  want  the  change  to  be  dictated 
by  an  artistic  necessity  as  it  is  in  "  As  You  Like 
It."  We  want,  above  all,  such  a  reasonable 
correspondence  between  seeing  and  hearing  as 
shall  make  it  possible  for  us  to  preserve  each 
sense  unimpaired  by  the  other.  A  few  such 
operas  have  been  composed.  A  considerable 
number  approach  this  ideal.  From  Gluck's 
"  Orfeo "  (produced  in  1762)  to  Wagner's 
"Tristan  "(1865)  the  pure  conception  of  opera 
has  always  been  kept  alive.  Gluck,  Mozart, 
Weber,  Wagner,  and  Verdi  are  the  great  names 
that  stand  out  above  the  general  level. 

Gluck's  "Orfeo"  is  even  more  interesting 
since  the  dark  shadow  of  Strauss's  "Electra" 
has  appeared  to  throw  it  into  relief.  Once  in 
a  decade  or  two  "  Orfeo  "  is  revived  to  reveal 
anew  how  nobly  Gluck  interpreted  the  old 
Greek  story.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Gluck  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 

[  "68  ] 


THE  OPERA 

century,  when  music  was  quite  inflexible  in 
the  matter  of  those  dissonances  which  are 
considered  by  modern  composers  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  expression  of  dramatic  passion. 
After  Gluck  came  Mozart  with  his  "Don 
Giovanni,"  preserving  the  same  balance  be- 
tween action  and  emotion,  with  an  even  greater 
unity  of  style  and  the  same  sincerity  of  utter- 
ance. Mozart  possessed  a  supreme  mastery 
over  all  his  material,  and  a  unique  gift  for  cre- 
ating pure  and  lucid  melody.  In  his  operas 
there  is  no  admixture :  his  tragedy  and  his 
comedy  are  alike  purely  objective  —  and  it  is 
chiefly  this  quality  which  prevents  our  under- 
standing them.  We,  in  our  day  and  age,  can- 
not project  ourselves  into  Mozart's  milieu; 
the  tragedy  at  the  close  of  "  Don  Giovanni" 
moves  us  no  whit  because  it  is  devoid  of 
shrieking  dissonances  and  thunders  of  orches- 
tral sound.  Our  nervous  systems  are  adjusted 
to  instrumental  cataclysms.  (We  are  conscious 
only  of  a  falling  star ;  the  serene  and  placid 
Heavens  look  down  on  us  in  vain.)  Could  we 
hear  "  Don  Giovanni"  in  a  small  opera  house 
sung  in  pure  classic  style,  we  should  realize 
how  beautiful  it  is;  we  should  no  longer  crave 

[  -69  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

the  over-excitement  and  unrestrained  passion 
ofuLaTosca";  we  should  understand  that 
the  deepest  passion  is  expressible  without  tear- 
ing itself  to  tatters,  and  that  music  may  be 
unutterably  tragic  in  simple  major  and  minor 
mode.  Don  Giovanni  is  a  type  of  operatic 
hero,  —  he  may  be  found  in  some  modified 
form  in  half  the  operas  ever  written,  —  but 
Mozart  lifts  him  far  above  his  petty  intrigues 
and  makes  him  a  great  figure  standing  for  cer- 
tain elements  in  human  nature.  (It  is  the  fail- 
ure of  Gounod  to  accomplish  this  which  puts 
"  Faust "  on  the  lower  plane  it  occupies.)  The 
stage  setting  of  "  Don  Giovanni,"-  —the  con- 
ventional rooms  with  gilt  chairs,  and  the  like, 
—  the  costumes,  the  acting,  the  music  (orches- 
tral and  vocal),  are  all  unified  in  one  style. 
And  this,  coupled  with  the  supreme  mastery 
and  the  melodic  gift  of  its  composer,  makes  it 
one  of  the  most  perfect,  if  not  the  most  per- 
fect, of  operas. 

Beethoven's  "Fidelio"  (produced  in  1805) 
celebrates  the  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  of  a 
woman  —  and  that  devotion  and  self-sacrifice 
actually  have  for  their  object  her  husband!  It 
is  a  noble  opera,  but  Beethoven's  mind  and 


THE  OPERA 

temperament  were  not  suited  to  the  operatic 
problem,  and  "  Fidelio  "  is  not  by  any  means 
a  perfect  work  of  art.  The  Beethoven  we  hear 
there  is  the  Beethoven  of  the  slow  movements 
of  the  sonatas  and  symphonies;  but  we  could 
well  hear  "  Fidelio  "  often,  for  it  stands  alone 
in  its  utter  sincerity  and  grandeur. 

The  romantic  operas  of  Weber  tend  toward 
that  characterization  which  is  the  essential 
equality  of  his  great  successor,  Wagner,  for 
"  Der  Freischiitz  "  and  "  Euryanthe  "  are  full 
of  characteristic  music.  Weber  begins  and  ends 
romantic  opera.  (Romantic  subjects  are  com- 
mon enough,  but  romantic  treatment  is  exceed- 
ingly uncommon.  Scott's  "  Bride  of  Lammer- 
moor,"  for  example,  in  passing  through  the 
hands  of  librettist  and  composer  becomes  — 
in  Donizetti's  "Lucia  di  Lammermoor"  — 
considerably  tinged  with  melodrama.)  There 
is  evidence  enough  in  "  Der  Freischiitz  "  and 
"Euryanthe"  of  Weber's  sincerity  and  desire 
to  make  his  operas  artistic  units.  Each  of  them 
conveys  a  definite  impression  of  beauty  and 
avoids  those  specious  appeals  so  common  in 
opera. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  early  part  of  the  nine- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

teenth  century,  opera  comique  was  flourishing 
in  France.  Auber,  Herold,  Boieldieu,  and 
other  composers  were  producing  works  in 
which  the  impossible  happenings  of  grand 
opera  were  made  possible  by  humor  and  light- 
ness of  touch.  The  words  of  these  composers 
are  full  of  delightful  melody  and  are  more  rea- 
sonable and  true  than  are  many  better-known 
grand  operas. 

Then  comes  the  Wagnerian  period,  with 
its  preponderance  of  drama  over  music.  In 
"Tristan  und  Isolde"  Wagner,  by  his  own 
confession,  turned  away  from  preconceived 
theories  and  composed  as  his  inner  spirit 
moved  him.  "  Tristan  "  is,  therefore,  the  work 
of  an  artist  rather  than  of  a  theorist,  and  al- 
though it  is  based  on  the  leit-motif  and  on  cer- 
tain other  important  structural  ideas  which  be- 
long to  the  Wagnerian  scheme,  it  rises  far 
above  their  limitations  and  glows  with  the  real 
light  of  genius.  In  "Tristan"  the  action  is 
suited  to  the  psychology.  It  is  a  great  work 
of  art  and  the  most  beautiful  of  all  recanta- 
tions. In  it  we  realize  how  finely  means  may 
be  adjusted  to  ends,  how  clearly  music  and 
text  may  be  united,  how  reasonable  is  the  use 


THE  OPERA 

of  the  leit-motif  when  it  characterizes  beings 
aflame  with  passion ;  how  the  song,  under  the 
influence  of  great  dramatic  situations,  can  be 
expanded;  how  vividly  the  orchestra  can  in- 
terpret and  even  further  the  actions ;  how  even 
the  chorus  can  be  fitted  into  the  dramatic 
scheme  —  everywhere  in  "  Tristan  "  there  is 
unity.  This  is  not  true  of  most  of  Wagner's 
other  operas.  "Die  Meistersinger"  comes 
nearest  to  "Tristan"  in  this  respect.  May  we 
not  say  that  of  all  the  music-dramas  of  Wag- 
ner, "Tristan"  and  "Die  Meistersinger"  lay 
completely  in  his  consciousness  unmixed  with 
philosophical  ideas  and  theories?  In  them  the 
leit-motif  deals  chiefly  with  emotions  or  with 
characteristics  of  persons  rather  than  with  in- 
animate objects,  or  ideas ;  in  them  is  no  gran- 
diose scenic  display;  no  perversity  of  theory,  but 
only  beautiful  music  wedded  to  a  fitting  text. 

Wagner's  reforms  were  bound  to  bring  about 
a  reaction,  which  came  in  due  season  and  re- 
sulted in  shorter  and  more  direct  works, such  as 
those  of  the  modern  Italians.  No  operas  since 
Wagner,  save  Verdi's  "  Otello  "  and  "  Fal- 
stafF,"  approach  the  greatness  of  his  music- 
dramas,  and  the  tendency  of  many  of  these 

[  173  ] 


Music  £.ND  LIFE 

later  works  has  been  too  much  toward  what 
we  mildly  call  "  decadence."  But  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  the  truthfulness  and 
artistic  validity  of  "  Carmen  "  and  that  of  "  La 
Boheme  "  and  "  La  Tosca."  The  former  is 
packed  full  of  genuine  passion,  however  prim- 
itive, brutal,  and  devastating  it  may  be ;  and 
its  technical  skill  is  undoubted. 

The  most  interesting  phrase  of  modern  op- 
era is  found  in  the  works  of  the  Russians.  It 
was  inevitable  that  they  should  overturn  our 
delicately  adjusted  artistic  mechanism.  Dos- 
toievsky's "  The  Brothers  Karamazov"  is  as 
though  there  never  had  been  a  Meredith  or  a 
Henry  James,  and  Moussorgsky's  "  Boris  Go- 
dounov  "  is  as  though  there  had  never  been  a 
Mozart  or  a  Wagner.  It  has  something  of  that 
amorphous  quality  which  seems  to  be  a  part 
of  Russian  life,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  has 
immense  vitality.  How  refreshing  to  see  a 
crowd  of  peasants  look  like  peasants,  and  to 
hear  them  sing  their  own  peasant  songs;  and 
what  stability  they  give  to  the  whole  work  ! 
"Boris  Godounov"  gravitates,  as  it  were, 
around  these  folk-songs,  which  give  to  it  a 
certain  reality  and  truthfulness. 

[   -74] 


THE  OPERA 

V.    OPERA  AS  A  HUMAN  INSTITUTION 

These  various  works  have  long  since  been 
accepted  by  the  musical  world  as  the  great 
masterpieces  in  operatic  form.  Many  of  them 
are  practically  out  of  the  present  repertoire  of 
our  opera  houses.  Were  we  to  assert  our- 
selves—  were  the  general  public  given  an  op- 
portunity to  choose  between  good  and  bad  — 
we  should  hear  them  often.  And  who  shall 
say  what  results  might  not  come  from  a 
small  and  properly  managed  opera  house, 
with  performances  of  fine  works  at  reasonable 
prices  ? 

Opera  is  controlled  by  a  few  rich  men  who 
think  it  a  part  of  the  life  of  a  great  city  that 
there  should  be  an  opera  house  with  a  fine 
orchestra,  fine  scenery,  and  the  greatest  sing- 
ers obtainable.  It  does  not  exist  for  the  good 
of  the  whole  city,  but  rather  for  those  of  ple- 
thoric purses.  It  does  not  make  any  attempt 
to  become  a  sociological  force;  it  does  not 
even  dimly  see  what  possibilities  it  possesses 
in  that  direction.  Opera  houses  and  opera 
companies  are  sedulously  protected  against 
any  sociological  scrutiny.  They  are  persist- 

[  -75] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

cntly  reported  to  be  hot-beds  of  intrigue;  they 
trade  on  society  and  on  the  love  of  highly 
paid  singing;  they  surround  themselves  with 
an  exotic  atmosphere  in  which  the  normal 
person  finds  difficulty  in  breathing,  and  which 
often  turns  the  opera  singer  into  a  strange 
specimen  of  the  genus  man  or  woman  ;  they  go 
to  ruin  about  once  in  so  often,  and  are  extri- 
cated by  the  unnecessarily  rich ;  they  are  too 
little  related  to  the  community  that  supports 
them  save  in  the  mediums  of  money  and  so- 
cial convention. 

These  artificial  and  false  conditions  are 
bound  to  bring  evils  in  their  train,  but  these 
conditions  and  these  evils  are  chiefly  the  re- 
sult of  our  own  complacency.  Were  opera  in 
any  sense  domestic;  were  opera  singers  to 
some  extent,  at  least,  human  beings  like  our- 
selves, moving  in  a  reasonable  world;  did  we 
go  to  hear  opera  as  we  go  to  a  symphony 
concert,  or  to  an  art  museum,  —  to  satisfy  our 
love  of  beauty,  and  quicken  our  imagination 
by  contact  with  beautiful  objects;  were  the 
conditions  of  performance  such  as  to  enable  us 
to  hear  the  words,  then  would  opera  become 
a  fine  human  institution,  then  would  it  take 


THE  OPERA 

its  place  among  the  noble  dreams  of  hu- 
manity. 

In  my  endeavor  to  make  some  distinctions 
between  good  and  bad  opera  I  have  drawn  a 
somewhat  arbitrary  line.  I  do  not  wish  to  give 
the  impression  that  I  think  all  opera  on  one 
side  of  the  line  is  bad  and  on  the  other  good. 
I  have  tried  to  strike  a  just  balance  by  ap- 
plying certain  admitted  principles  of  artistic 
construction  and  expression.  From  these  prin- 
ciples, which  lie  at  the  basis  of  life  and,  there- 
fore, of  art,  opera  has  unjustly  claimed  im- 
munity. 

And  finally  we  come  to  that  point  in  our 
argument  where  reasoning  must  stop  alto- 
gether. For  opera  is  to  many  people  a  sort  of 
fascination  entirely  outside  reason.  They  re- 
fuse to  admit  it  as  a  subject  of  discussion ; 
they  enjoy  the  spectacle  on  the  stage  and  the 
spectacle  of  which  they  are  a  part;  the  sight 
of  three  thousand  people  well  dressed  like 
themselves  comforts  them;  the  fine  singing, 
costumes,  and  stage-setting,  the  gorgeous  or- 
chestra throbbing  with  passion  entirely  un- 
bridled—  all  these  they  enjoy  in  that  mental 
lassitude  which  is  dear  to  them.  They  are, 

[  '77] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

perhaps,  slightly  uncomfortable  at  a  symphony 
concert ;  here  there  are  no  obligations.  Opera 
is,  in  short,  to  such  people  a  slightly  illicit 
aesthetic  adventure. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SYMPHONY 

I.    WHAT  IS  A  SYMPHONY? 

IN  the  first  chapter  I  discussed  the  nature  of 
music  itself  in  order  that  I  might  clear  away 
certain  popular  misconceptions  about  it  and 
arrive  at  some  estimate  of  what  it  really  is.  In 
the  intervening  chapters  I  have  dealt  with  va- 
rious phases  of  music  :  I  have  discussed  it  in 
connection  with  words  or  action,  as  a  socio- 
logical force,  and  as  a  matter  of  pedagogy,  and 
in  so  doing  I  have  had  to  take  into  considera- 
tion all  sorts  of  non-musical  factors.  Now  the 
symphony  is  "pure  music,"  so  called;  it  exists 
as  a  separate  and  distinct  thing  whose  only 
purpose  is  to  be  beautiful  and  true  to  life. 
Furthermore  it  has  always  been  largely  inde- 
pendent of  its  audience.  The  opera  has  been 
subject  to  the  vagaries  of  singers,  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  audience  for  fine  costumes  and 
scenery;  the  symphony,  on  the  contrary,  has 
grown  naturally  and  freely,  being  hindered 
only  by  the  slow  development  of  instruments 

[   '79  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

and  of  the  technique  of  playing  them.  Nearly 
every  great  symphony  has  persisted  in  the 
face  of  the  opposition  of  the  public  and  of 
many  of  the  critics ;  the  gibes  hurled  at  the 
First  Symphony  of  Brahms  were  as  bitter 
as  those  hurled  at  the  Second  Symphony  of 
Beethoven.  In  discussing,  therefore,  what  is 
undoubtedly  the  greatest  of  musical  forms,  I 
desire  first  to  state  as  nearly  as  may  be  what, 
in  its  essence,  it  is. 

A  symphony  is,  of  course,  like  other  music 
in  being  an  arrangement  of  rhythmic  figures, 
of  melodies  (usually  called  "themes")  and  of 
harmonies.  But  before  describing  it  as  such 
—  before  dealing  with  its  materials,  its  form, 
its  history,  and  its  place  in  the  art  of  music  — 
I  wisJx  tQ_JT£al_jt  solely  as  a  thing  of  beauty 
expressed  in  terms  of  sound.  Many  people 
seem  to  think  music  an  art  dealing  with  ob- 
jects or  with  ideas.  Some,  never  having  be- 
come sensitized  to  it  in  childhood,  look  upon 
it  as  of  no  importance  whatever.  A  large  num- 
ber have  tried  to  perform  it  on  an  instrument 
and  have  failed.  Others  have  succeeded  at  the 
price  of  thinking  of  it  only  in  terms  of  tech- 
nique. A  certain  happy  few,  some  of  whom 


THE  SYMPHONY 

can  perform  it,  and  some  of  whom  cannot, 
are  satisfied  to  take  it  as  it  is  and  be  stimu- 
lated by  it.  These  are  the  true  musicians  and  we 
should  all  aspire  to  join  their  happy  company. 
What  we  call  a  symphony  is  .merely_a  senes_ 
of  ordered  sounds  produced  by  means  of  in- 
struments of  various  kinds.  It  is  sound  and 
nothing  else.  Our  programme  books  tell  us 
about  "  first  themes  "  and  "  second  themes," 
and  we  make  what  effort  we  can  to  patch  to- 
gether the  various  brilliant  textures  of  sym- 
phonic music  into  a  coherent  pattern,  but  the 
music  we  seek  lies  behind  these  outward  man- 
ifestations as,  in  a  lesser  sense,  the  significance 
of  a  great  poem  lies  behind  the  actual  words. 
So  it  is  with  all  the  greatest  art,  whatever  the 
medium  may  be.  The  chief  difference  between 
a  symphony  and  any  other  form  of  artistic 
expression  —  such  as  a  novel,  a  play,  a  paint- 
ing, or  a  piece  of  sculpture  —  is  that  a  sym- 
phony is  not  a  record  of  something  else ;  it  is 
not  a  picture  of  something  else ;  it  is  itself 
only.  And  it  is  this  quality  or  property  of 
being  itself  that  gives  to  all  pure  music  its 
remarkable  power.  Any  intelligent  person,  on 
being  shown  a  diagram  or  plan  of  a  sym- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

phonic  movement,  could  be  made  to  under- 
stand how  and  why  the  material  was  so  dis- 
posed, for  that  disposition  is  dictated  to  the 
composer  by  the  nature  of  sound  and  by  the 
limitations  and  capacities  of  human  beings,  and 
it  conforms  to  certain  principles  which  operate 
everywhere;  but  that  understanding  would  not 
reveal  the  symphony  to  him. 

There  is  in  every  one  of  us  a  region  of  sensi- 
bi,lity_in_sKhich_mind  and  emotion  are  blended 
and  from  which  the  imagination  acts,  and  it  is 
to  this  sensibility'  that  music  appeals.  Now, 
the  imagination,  which  we  believe  to  be  the 
highest  function  of  human  beings,  cannot  act 
from  the  mind  alone.  Mathematics,  for  ex- 
ample, does  not  lie  entirely  in  the  domain  of 
the  mind,  and  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of 
any  other  department  of  science.  The  chief 
value  of  scientific  studies  in  school  and  uni- 
versity lies  in  the  stimulation  of  the  student's 
imagination  rather  than  in  the  acquisition  of 
scientific  facts.  Now,  we  cannot  conceive  any 
act  of  the  imagination  whatever  that  does  not 
glow  with  the  radiance  of  emotion,  so  that 
music,  in  appealing  to  the  whole  being,  is  not 
so  completely  isolated  as  is  generally  supposed. 

[   18*  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

But  the  simultaneous  appeal  of  music  to  the 
mind  and  the  feelings  has  led  to  much  con- 
fusion on  the  part  of  writers  who  have  not 
been  sensitive  to  all  its  qualities.  In  his  essay 
on  "  Education  "  Herbert  Spencer,  for  exam- 
ple, in  discussing  the  union  of  science  and 
poetry,  says :  "  It  is  doubtless  true  that,  as  states 
of  consciousness,  cognition  and  emotion  tend 
to  exclude  each  other.  And  it  is  doubtless 
true  also  that  an  extreme  activity  of  the  feelings 
tends  to  deaden  the  reflective  powers :  in  which 
sense,  indeed,  all  orders  of  activity  are  antag- 
onistic to  each  other."  Now  this  statement 
reveals  at  once  the  limitations  of  a  philosophic 
mind  when  dealing  with  something  that  re- 
quires apprehension  by  the  feelings  also.  In 
listening  to  music  the  reflective  powers  are  not 
engaged  with  objects  or  with  definite  ideas,  but 
with  pure  sound  that  requires  correlation  only 
with  itself,  and  the  condition  of  mutual  exclu- 
sion between  thought  and  feeling  no  longer 
exists  because  the  music  is  expressing  thought 
and  feeling  in  the  same  terms.1  Spencer  speaks 

*  I  stated  in  the  first  chapter  what  justification  there  is  for 
using  the  word  "  intellectual "  in  regard  to  music,  and  I  speak 
here  of  thought  in  that  sense. 

[  '83  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  science  as  full  of  poetry,  which  is  true 
enough,  but  his  statement  about  music  reveals 
an  incapacity  to  understand  it.  And  his  mis- 
conceptions about  art  in  general  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  following  concerning  the  axis  in 
sculpture  as  applied  to  a  standing  figure:  "But 
sculptors  unfamiliar  with  the  theory  of  equi- 
librium not  uncommonly  so  represent  this  at- 
titude that  the  line  of  direction  falls  midway 
between  the  feet.  Ignorance  of  the  laws  of 
momentum  leads  to  analogous  errors;  as  wit- 
ness the  admired  Discobolus,  which,  as  it  is 
posed,  must  inevitably  fall  forward  the  mo- 
ment the  quoit  is  delivered."  This  observa- 
tion completely  misses  the  quite  sound  reasons 
for  the  pose  of  that  remarkable  statue,  and,  if 
applied  to  sculpture  in  general,  would  destroy 
the  famous  "Victory  of  Samothrace "  and 
many  other  fine  examples  of  Greek  sculpture. 
But  it  is  strange  and  mysterious,  after  all, 
that  these  ordered  sounds  should  be  so  precious 
to  us;  that  we  should  preserve  their  printed 
symbols  generation  after  generation  and  con- 
tinually reproduce  them  as  sound,  feeling  them 
to  be  strong  and  stable  and  true ;  that  we  should 
even  come  to  say,  after  many  generations,  that 

[  '84] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

their  creator  was  a  wise  man  who  had  in  him 
a  profound  philosophy.  But  it  is  stranger  still 
to  realize  how  convincing  this  philosophy  is 
as  compared  to  any  philosophy  of  the  reason, 
and  to  see  how  profound  in  it  is  the  sense  of 
reconciliation  —  a  reconciliation  that  the  mind 
seeks  in  vain.  Our  life  consists  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  action,  phenomena  of  what  we  are, 
and  in  actual  life  never  quite  reconcilable.  But 
the  world  of  music  is  not  actual  life.  Music  is 
absolved  from  actual  phenomena,  and  achieves 
by  virtue  of  this  freedom  a  complete  and  pro- 
found philosophy  —  a  philosophy  unintelli- 
gible to  the  mind  alone,  but  intelligible  to  the 
complete  being.  The  strength  of  every  art  lies 
chiefly  in  its  detachment  from  reality.  Sculp- 
ture does  not  gain  by  being  realistic,  pictur- 
esque, or  decorative;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  at 
its  highest  when  it  is  ideal,  detached,  and  super- 
human. Painting  does  not  gain  by  being  cate- 
gorical, but  is  greatest  when  it  seeks  something 
beyond  the  outward,  physical  view.  The  novel 
or  the  essay  depends  for  its  greatness  on  its 
power  of  relating  real  persons,  things,  and  ideas 
to  that  greater  and  deeper  reality  of  which  they 
are  a  part.  In  this  sense  music  stands  supreme 

[  -85] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

above  the  other  arts  because  it  is  the  most  de- 
tached. The  elements  of  thought  and  feeling 
are,  in  music,  presented  as  elements ;  the  thought 
is  not  thought  even  in  the  abstract,  for  it  is 
not  "about"  anything;  the  feeling  is  not  ac- 
tual feeling,  and  the  action  is  not  real  action. 
Each  of  these  properties  or  states  of  the  hu- 
man being  is  here  expressed  in  its  essence,  de- 
tached from  all  actual  manifestation.  None  but 
the  highest  type  of  mind,  none  but  a  heart  full 
of  deep  human  sympathy,  none  but  a  vigor- 
ous militant  spirit  could  have  conceived  and 
brought  forth  such  compositions,  for  example, 
as  the  Third  and  Ninth  Symphonies  of  Bee- 
thoven, yet  they  are  nothing  but  sound  — 
neither  the  thought  nor  the  feeling  nor  the  ac- 
tion is  real. 

But  we  may  also  truly  say  that  in  Conrad's 
novel  it  is  not  the  person,  Lord  Jim,  who 
moves  us,  but  rather  the  author's  deep  insight 
into  the  elements  of  human  character  expressed 
through  the  central  figure.  A  portrait  by  Velas- 
quez is  a  portrait  of  the  personality  that  lived 
within  the  outward  appearance.  The  figure  of 
Pendennis  is  not  so  much  the  youth  by  that 
name  as  it  is  youth  itself — youth,  care-free, 
[  -86] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

but  bound  by  tradition  and  love.  All  great  art 
is  subjective,  lying  in  the  mind  of  man. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view,  then,  that  I 
approach  the  symphony.  I  do  not  need  now 
to  dwell  on  its  history,  on  its  form,  or  on  its 
means  of  expression,  because  they  are  merely 
incidental  to  its  being  a  profound  human  docu- 
ment. Pure  music  at  its  highest  is  the  will  of 
man  made  manifest,  and  one  may  doubt  if  that 
will  becomes  fully  manifest  in  any  other  of 
his  creations.  It  compasses  all  his  actions,  all 
his  thoughts,  all  his  feelings;  it  translates  his 
dreams;  it  satisfies  his  insatiable  curiosities;  it 
justifies  his  pride  (as  he  himself  never  does); 
it  makes  him  the  god  he  would  be;  it  is  like  a 
crystal  ball,  in  whose  mystic  depths  the  whole 
of  life  moves  in  a  shadow  fantasy. 

II.    HOW  SHALL  WE  UNDERSTAND  IT? 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  the  only  possible  way 
to  understand  a  symphony  is  to  accept  it  as  it 
is  |nd  not  try  to  make  it  into  something  else. 
Music  is  not  a  language;  it  does  not  exist  in 
other  terms,  but  is  untranslatable.  When  a 
trumpet  blares  and  you  make  any  of  the  con- 
ventional associations  with  the  trumpet,  such 

[  is?] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

as  a  battle,  a  hunt,  a  proclamation,  a  signal, 
off  goes  your  mind  on  a  stream  of  alien  ideas 
that  may  carry  you  anywhere  and  that  will 
certainly  carry  you  farther  and  farther  away 
from  the  music  itself.  Earh  nf  the. .orchestral, 
instruments  hfl*  ^s  own-individual  association 
—  the  oboe  reminds  you  of  a  shepherd's  pipe, 
the  flute  of  a  bird's  song,  the  French  horn  of 
hunting,  and  so  forth;  but  each  one  of  the  in- 
struments in  the  orchestra  as  you  listen  to  it 
is  forming  lines,  and  adding  colors,  as  it  were, 
in  a  great  design.  And  this  design,  always  com- 
plete at  any  one  point,  goes  on  unceasingly 
forming  itself  ever  and  ever  anew.  It  is  always 
complete  and  always  incomplete,  always  mov- 
ing onward,  always  delicately  poised  for  inevi- 
table flight.  As  you  listen  you  have  lived  a 
thousand  lives;  dream  after  dream  has  dis- 
solved itself  in  your  consciousness;  each  mo- 
ment has  been  a  perfect  and  complete  exist- 
ence in  itself.  When  it  is  finished  you  awake 
to  what  you  call  happiness  or  unhappiness, 
peace  or  struggle,  satisfaction  or  chagrin;  the 
unreal  spectacle  of  the  world  imposes  itself 
upon  you  again;  you  are  once  more  a  human 
being.  Why  ask  that  glorious  world  in  which 
[  188  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

your  nature  has  been  freed  and  your  soul  has 
been  disencumbered  of  your  body  to  assume 
all  the  imperfections  of  this  one?  The  gods, 
of  necessity,  dwell  in  the  heavens.  No,  you 
cannot  understand  music  by  translating  it  into 
other  terms,  or  by  preserving  your  associations 
with  the  world  in  which  you  live.  ^Mind  and 
feeling,  sublimated  by  the  magic  of  these 
sounds,  must  detach  themselves  and  rise  to  a 
world  of  pure  imagination  where  there  is  no 
locality. 

Reconciliation!  A  philosophy  without  a  cate- 
gory ;  a  religion  without  a  dogma;  an  inde- 
structible shadow  world  which  offers  no  expla- 
nations, promulgates  no  opinions,  and  has  no 
mission  —  which  exists  completely  in  itself. 
What  more  shall  we  ask  for?  Why  cry  to  the 
heavens  for  a  manifestation?  Why  take  refuge 
in  a  so-called  "system"  of  philosophy  ?  Why 
shuffle  off  the  whole  problem  on  a  dogma? 
What  comfort  to  a  squirrel  in  a  cage  to  know 
the  number  of  its  bars  ?  Is  our  slow  and  inevi- 
table progress  from  the  unknown  to  the  un- 
known any  more  significant  because  we  have 
learned  to  tell  our  beads,  intellectual,  religious, 
or  aesthetic,  to  mumble  our  little  formulae,  and 

[   189  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

to  pick  our  way,  eyes  downward,  amongst  the 
stones  and  thorns,  never  once  glancing  clear- 
eyed  upward  to  the  sun?  We  have  always 
sought  a  fourth  dimension,  and  have  always 
had  it.  We  want  what  we  have  not;  we  wish 
to  be  what  we  are  not;  and  all  the  time  they 
have  been  within  our  grasp.  We  make  a  far- 
away heaven  to  answer  this  universal  cry,  when 
our  hand  is  on  its  very  doorlatch.  Our  imagi- 
nation falters  most  when  we  apply  it  to  things 
nearest  us.  Where  can  heaven  be  if  not  here  ? 
Is  it  an  omnibus  in  which  you  may  secure  a 
comfortable  seat  by  paying  your  fare?  Or  is  it 
a  state  of  yourself  toward  which  you  continu- 
ally struggle  and  to  which  you  occasionally 
attain  ? 


s 

not  merely  an  arrangement  of  rhythms,  mel- 
dcfies,  alrurharmonies  ;  it  is  not  a  record  of  the 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  deeds  of  men;  it  is  not 
a  picture  of  man  or  of  nature.  Rather  does  it 
launch  jtself  from  these  into  the  unknown.  It 
is  pure  imagination  freed  from  the  actual. 

The  foregoing  does  not,  in  any  sense,  pre- 
clude that  idea  of  a  symphony  which  is  ex- 
pressible in  terms  of  rhythm,  melody,  and  har- 

[   190  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

mony.  What  I  have  said  has  been  said  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  a  conception  of  it  in 
these  terms  only  (and,  of  course,  in  still  lower 
terms).  Our  physical  hearing  is  a  transit  to  the 
imagination  and  we  want  the  physical  hearing 
to  serve  that  purpose.  Nothing  retards  it  more 
than  an  attempt  at  the  time  to  intellectualize 
the  process.  In  other  words,  listening  to  a  sym- 
phony should  consist  in  giving  yourself  freely 
to  it;  in  making  of  yourself  a  passive  medium. 
Your  study  of  the  arrangement  of  themes,  and 
so  forth,  should  precede  or  follow  the  actual 
experience.  And  if  you  have  no  leisure  or  op- 
portunity for  such  study  and  depend  entirely 
on  an  occasional  concert,  you  should  neverthe- 
less continue  to  pursue  the  same  inactivity, 
allowing  the  music  itself  to  increase  your  sus- 
ceptibility little  by  little.  If  the  mind  is  em- 
ployed in  an  attempt  to  extricate  order  from 
confusion,  it  usurps  for  the  moment  the  other 
functions  of  listening.  And  I  would  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  the  proper  goal  of  a  musical 
education  should  be  to  arrive  at  such  a  state 
of  impressionability  to  pure, music  as  would 
leave  the  mind,  the  feelings,  and  the  imagina- 
tion free  to  act  subconsciousl  without  active 


Music  AND  LIFE 

direction,  and  without  struggle.  The  matter 
is  so  obvious.  There  is  the  music ;  here  is  the 
person.  It  awaits  him.  It  was  created  of  him 
and  for  him.  It  is  inconceivable  without  him. 
It;  is  his  spirit  coming  back  to  him  purified.  It 
is  the  only  thing  he  cannot  sully,  and  which 
cannot  sully  him,  for  in  the  very  nature  of  it, 
it  cannot  be  turned  to  base  uses.  What  man 
would  be,  here  he  is.  In  making  this  beautiful 
spectacle  of  life,  as  Conrad  says,  he  has  found 
its  only  explanation.  So  we  should  avoid  mar- 
ring the  actual  experience  by  conscious  intent 
on  the  technical  details. 

What  I  have  said  thus  far  may  seem  of  but 
slight  assistance  to  the  average  person  who  at- 
tends symphony  concerts.  1  have  stated  what 
I  thought  symphonic  music  to  be,  and  have 
urged  my  readers  not  to  listen  to  it  analyti- 
cally. But  my  purpose  here  is  not  to  attempt 
to  blaze  an  easy  path  for  the  music-lover ;  in 
fact,  I  am  unqualifiedly  opposed  to  that  too 
common  practice  of  zesthetic  writing.  There 
is  no  easy  path,  and  an  attempt  to  find  one  is 
disastrous  to  any  progress  whatever.  Every 
person  who  has  attained  to  a  real  understand- 
ing of  aesthetic  objects  knows  that  the  growth 

[  192  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

of  that  understanding  has  been  slow.  The 
characteristic  weakness  of  our  artistic  status  is 
self-deception.  We  are  not  frank  with  our- 
selves ;  we  are  unwilling  to  admit  ourselves  in 
ignorance;  we  advance  opinions  which  are  not 
our  own.  The  only  possible  basis  for  advance- 
ment in  anything  is  intellectual  honesty.  In- 
formation about  a  symphony  is  useless  unless 
there  is  a  real  appeal  in  the  music  itself.  So  I 
do  not  attempt  to  provide  here  a  panacea; 
just  the  opposite  is  my  purpose.  All  I  want 
to  do  is  to  show  that  the  symphony  is  worth 
struggling  for,  and  to  brush  away  such  mis- 
conceptions about  it  as  might  retard  the  prog- 
ress of  those  who  have  the  will  and  the  per- 
severance to  struggle.  And  when  there  is  no 
will  to  struggle,  nothing  can  be  accomplished. 
What  is  called  "  mental  lassitude  "  is  almost  a 
contradiction  in  terms. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  proper  musical  educa- 
tion would  have  solved  our  problems  in  a 
natural  manner.  If,  as  children,  we  had  been 
taught  to  sing  only  beautiful  songs;  if  we  had 
been  trained  to  listen  to  music;  if  our  mem- 
ory for  musical  phrases,  rhythms,  etc.,  had 
been  cultivated,  we  should  be  quick  in  appre- 

[   '93  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

handing  all  the  qualities  of  a  symphony,  for 
all  our  analytical  reasoning  would  have  been 
done  beforehand.  And  nothing  can  ever  take 
the  place  of  such  an  education,  because  the 
natural  taste  for  music,  which  is  so  strong  in 
childhood,  has  in  us  been  allowed  to  lapse. 
So  that  our  first  duty  is  to  our  children.  We 
want  them  to  avoid  our  mistakes.  In  every 
household,  in  every  school,  public  or  private, 
this  ideal  of  music-study  should  be  upheld  — 
namely,  {hat  the  children  should  enter  life  so 
prepared  by  their  early  training  as  to  be  able 
to  enjoy  the  greatest  music. 

I  take  a  form  of  pure  music  as  a  type  of 
our  highest  attainment,  because  when  music  is 
allied  to  words  or  to  action  it  gives  certain 
hostages.  Furthermore,  the  symphony  evolved 
slowly  under  the  law  of  its  own  being,  and  it 
represents  the  application  to  music  of  those 
general  laws  of  proportion  and  balance,  of 
unity  and  variety,  which  govern  all  artistic 
expression.  It  has  never  been  subjected  to 
alien  influences  ;  popularity  has  not  been  its 
motive  power;  virtuosity  has  never  dictated 
to  it.  If  you  understand  the  symphony  you 
can  apply  that  understanding  to  any  other 


THE  SYMPHONY 

i 

form  of  music.  If  one  compares  it  with  the 
opera  this  distinction  is  at  once  evident.  In 
the  opera  that  antagonism  of  which  Spencer 
speaks  between  states  of  feeling  and  of  cogni- 
tion does  exist,  because  the  mind  is  there  ap- 
pealed to  through  objects  rather  than  through 
pure  sound.  The  symphony  speaks  in  its  own 
terms ;  opera  speaks  in  terms  of  characters  in 
action,  of  costume  and  of  scenery,  as  well  as 
of  music.  Even  the  greatest  operas  cause  you 
to  reflect  on  something  outside  themselves  — 
on  human  motives  as  they  find  expression  in 
human  action.  In  either  "  Don  Giovanni "  or 
"Tristan,"  although  the  music  reaches  great 
heights  of  beauty  and  is  profoundly  moving, 
there  is  the  inevitable  struggle  between  seeing 
and  hearing,  the  inevitable  difficulty  between 
a  simultaneous  state  of  cognition  and  of  feel- 
ing. The  symphony  entirely  escapes  this  di- 
lemma. No  doubt  great  motives  lie  beneath 
it;  no  doubt  it,  too,  is  a  drama  of  human  life, 
for  otherwise  it  could  not  be  great  as  a  work 
of  art;  but  the  play  of  motives  in  a  symphony 
is  hidden  behind  the  impenetrable  veil  of 
sound.  The  Third,  Fifth,  and  Ninth  Sym- 
phonies of  Beethoven  are  truly  dramatic,  but 

[  '95] 


Music  AND   LIFE 

only  in  this  sense.  They  range  from  the  ten- 
der to  the  terrible ;  they  have  their  own  emo- 
tional climaxes ;  they  philosophize,  they  brood, 
they  grin  like  a  comic  mask ;  action  and  re- 
action follow  each  other  as  in  life  itself;  noth- 
ing is  lacking  but  that  one  inconsequential 
thing,  reality.  Art  is  truth  ;  life  is  but  a  shadow 
fading  to  nothingness  as  the  sun  sets. 

III.    THE  MATERIALS  OF  THE  SYMPHONY 

I  have  said  that  the  symphony  evolved 
slowly  under  the  laws  of  its  own  being,  and  I 
wish  to  state  briefly  and  (as  far  as  possible)  in 
simple  terms  how  that  evolution  came  about. 
If  I  should  go  back  to  the  very  beginning  I 
should  have  to  point  out  that  the  primal  dif- 
ference between  music  and  noise  consists  in 
the  intensity  of  vibration  and  in  the  grouping 
of  the  sounds  into  regular  series  by  means  of 
accents.  A  series  of  unaccented  tones  does  not 
make  music.  If  a  clock,  in  striking  twelve, 
should,  by  accenting  certain  strokes,  throw  the 
whole  number  into  regular  groups,  it  would 
supply  the  basis  for  music.  In  any  great  piece 
of  martial  music  these  accents  and  these  im- 
pulses in  groups  constitute  the  element  that 

[  196  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

moves  us  to  comply  with  it  ourselves;  we  beat 
time  with  hand  or  foot;  we  are  infused  with 
the  momentum.  And  the  force  of  the  impetus 
may  be  observed  at  the  close  of  nearly  every 
piece  of  music  where  conventional  chords  ease 
off  its  stress.  The  last  forty  measures  of  the 
Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven  constitute  a  sort 
of  brake  on  the  huge  moving  mass.  Chopin's 
Polonaise,  opus  26,  number  i,  on  the  contrary, 
does  not  end;  it  stops.  In  Fielding's  "Tom 
Jones  "  the  impetus  of  the  action  is  carried  on 
so  far  that  the  climax  is  postponed  to  a  point 
dangerously  near  the  end  of  the  book,  which 
leaves  us  with  a  sense  of  breathlessness  or  even 
of  aggravation.  In  music,  when  this  impetus 
is  of  extreme  vigor,  any  temporary  displace- 
ment of  it  produces  almost  the  effect  of  a  cata- 
clysm—  as  in  the  first  movement  of  Beetho- 
ven's Third  Symphony,  where  great  chords  in 
twos  clash  across  already  established  metrical 
groups  of  threes.  Within  the  metrical  groups 
all  sorts  of  subdivisions  may  exist,  and  these 
constitute  what  is  called  "rhythm"  in  music. 
Rhythm,  in  brief,  is  the  variety  which  any 
melody  imposes  on  the  regular  beats  that  con- 
stitute its  time  basis. 

[   197  ] 


It  is  from  this  rhythmic  movement  that  the 
symphony  gets  its  quality  of  action,  and  the 
precursors  of  the  symphony  in  this  respect 
were  the  old  folk-songs  and  dance-tunes  the 
melodies  of  which  are  full  of  rhythmic  diver- 
sity. The  line  from  these  early  nai've  compo- 
sitions down  to  symphonic  music  was  never 
broken,  and  there  is  hardly  a  symphony  in 
existence  that  does  not  pay  direct  tribute  to 
them. 

I  dwell  on  this  point  at  some  length  because 
here  lies  a  large  part  of  the  energy  of  music. 
The  rhythmic  figures  to  which  I  have  already 
referred  contain  within  themselves  a  primal 
force.  They  are  capable  of  throwing  off  parts 
of  themselves,  and  these,  caught  in  the  pri- 
mary orbit,  live  as  separate  identities,  until 
the  too  powerful  attraction  of  the  greater  mass 
absorbs  them  again.  As  rhythm,  then,  a  sym- 
phonic movement  is  like  sublimated  physical 
energy.  As  the  first  oscillations  of  its  impulse 
strike  our  consciousness  we  are  caught  up  into 
a  world  of  movement  which  has  the  inevita- 
bility of  star  courses.  We  ourselves  are  all 
rhythm — rhythm  imprisoned  and  awaiting  re- 
lease. In  music  we  become  one  with  all  that 

[  '98  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

ceaseless  movement  or  vibration  without  which 
there  would  be  no  physical  or  spiritual  world 
at  all.  I  say,  then,  that  rhythm  is  the  very 
heart  of  music ;  that  while  we  are  all  suscep- 
tible to  it  (though  comparatively  few  people 
can  move  their  hands  or  feet  or  bodies  in  per- 
fect rhythm  —  they  would  be  much  better  off 
if  they  could !)  we  do  not  altogether  see  what 
significance  it  has  as  an  aesthetic  property  of 
music.  When  the  heart  of  music  stops  beating 
(as  in  one  of  Beethoven's  scherzi)  we  are  sur- 
prised, or  perhaps  disturbed,  not  answering  to 
the  marvelous  silence;  when  two  or  even  three 
rhythms  are  acting  simultaneously  we  are  con- 
fused and  helpless  before  the  most  fascinating 
of  aesthetic  phenomena. 

Let  me  next  dwell  briefly  on  that  element 
in  the  evolution  of  symphonic  music  which 
consists  in  the  use  of  several  themes  simul- 
taneously. Should  we  trace  this  back  to  its 
original  we  should  find  ourselves  in  the  ninth 
century.  Now,  while  I  know  that  this  is  not 
the  place  for  a  dissertation  on  any  abstruse 
musical  terms,  I  shall  venture  this  much,  not 
only  because  this  method  of  writing  is  used 
in  nearly  all  really  fine  music,  but  because  a 

[  199  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

large  part  of  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from 
listening  to  a  symphony  depends  on  our  ca- 
pacity to  follow  the  varied  strands  of  melody 
that  constitute  it.  Is  it  not  so,  also,  with  the 
novel?  The  chief  theme  of  Meredith's  "The 
Egoist"  has  numberless  counter-themes  run- 
ning through  and  around  it.  It  is  not  by  any 
means  to  be  found  in  Sir  Willoughby  alone^ 
for  you  understand  it  through  Vernon's  good 
sense,  through  Clara's  dart-like  intuitions, 
through  Mr.  Middleton's  patient  surprise  at 
having  such  a  daughter,  through  Letitia,  and 
Crossjay,  and  Horace  De  Cray — all  these  are 
continually  explaining  and  illuminating  the 
theme  for  you.  It  is  true  that  music  asks  you 
to  listen  to  several  melodies  at  once,  but  what 
does  the  episode  of  Crossjay's  unwitting  lis- 
tening to  Sir  Willoughby's  belated  declaration 
to  Letitia  ask  you  to  do?  Is  it  enough  merely 
to  record  the  scene  as  it  is  unfolded  to  you? 
Or  do  you  remember  Crossjay's  father  stump- 
ing up  the  avenue  in  his  ill-fitting  clothes? 
Clara's  intercessions  for  Crossjay?  Vernon's 
attempts  to  adjust  himself  to  Sir  Willoughby's 
overbearing  grandiloquence  ?  And  do  you  not 
have  to  remember,  especially,  that  Crossjay 
[  200  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

had  been  locked  out  of  his  room  by  Sir  Wil- 
loughby  and  had  sought  the  ottoman  as  a 
refuge  ?  These  are  all  strands  of  the  chief 
melody  in  that  remarkable  composition.  (Not 
all  the  strands  are  there,  for  satire  never  tells 
the  whole  truth.  "Tony"  in  Ethel  Sidgwick's 
"Promise"  and  "Succession"  is  also  an  ego- 
ist.) A  novel,  then,  in  this  sense,  is  not  suc- 
cessive, but  simultaneous.  All  that  has  been 
and  all  that  is  to  be  exist  in  every  moment  of 
life,  for  that  is  all  what  we  call  "the  present" 
means.  The  chief  difference  between  such  play 
of  character  around  an  idea  and  the  movement 
of  many  musical  themes  around  a  central  one 
lies  in  the  detached  and  spiritualized  quality 
of  sound. 

It  is  obvious  that  music,  written  for  an  or- 
chestra containing  some  twenty  or  more  differ- 
ent kinds  of  instruments  and  scores  of  perform- 
ers, must  have  great  variety  of  expression.  Each 
instrument  has  its  own  tone  color,  its  own  range, 
and  its  own  technique,  and  each  must  be  given 
its  own  thing  to  say.  In  this  sense  symphonic 
music  is  an  intricate  mesh  of  melodies,  each 
intent  on  its  own  purpose,  each  a  part  of  the 
whole.  In  no  other  of  its  varied  means  of  ex- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

pression  is  the  symphony  more  strictly  and 
more  fully  an  evolution  than  in  this  one  of 
complex  melodic  textures.  There  has  been  no 
hiatus.  From  its  first  great  moment  of  per- 
fection in  the  time  of  Palestrina,  through  the 
madrigal  and  fugue,  through  dance-tunes 
conventionalized  in  the  suite,  through  organ 
pieces,  oratorios,  and  the  like,  this  method  of 
writing  has  persisted.  Wagner  bases  his  whole 
musical  structure  on  the  play  and  interplay 
of  melodic  lines  in  his  leit-motifs.  Bach  is  all 
melodic  texture.  Music  written  in  this  manner 
is  called  "  polyphonic,"  and  the  method  of 
writing  it  is  called  "  counterpoint." 

In  direct  contrast  to  this  is  "  monodic " 
music  which  employs  only  one  melody  against 
an  accompaniment  of  chords.  A  large  part  of 
the  music  we  hear  is  monodic;  an  aria  by  Puc- 
cini, a  popular  song,  most  church  music  — 
these  have  one  melody  only.  So  has  Poe's 
"  For  Annie."  Polyphonic  music  has  the 
great  advantage  of  being  intensive  in  its  ex- 
pression; it  evolves  out  of  itself.  When  I  say 
that  almost  the  whole  of  the  first  movement 
of  Beethoven's  Ninth  Symphony  is  evolved 
out  of  a  few  measures  near  the  beginning,  I 
[  262  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

mean  that  the  melodic  fragments  of  the  theme 
take  on  a  life  of  their  own  and  by  so  doing 
illustrate  and  expound  the  significance  of  the 
original  thesis  from  which  they  sprang.  This 
quality,  or  property  in  music,  upon  which  I 
have  laid  some  stress,  is,  then,  not  so  much  a 
matter  of  technique  as  of  aesthetics.  The  thing 
done  and  the  manner  of  doing  it  is  each  the 
result  of  general  laws,  and  I  venture  to  dwell 
on  them  here,  not  for  expert,  technical  rea- 
sons, but  because  I  wish  to  offer  the  listener 
to  symphonies  one  of  his  most  delightful  op- 
portunities. Note  should  finally  be  made  of 
the  important  fact  that  only  those  symphonic 
themes  which  have  a  varied  and  vibrant  rhythm 
serve  well  the  purpose  of  counterpoint,  for 
the  essence  of  instrumental  counterpoint  lies 
in  setting  against  each  other  two  or  more 
melodic  phrases  in  contrasting  rhythms. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  by  the  foregoing  that 
symphonic  music  persistently  employs  coun- 
terpoint as  against  simple  melody.  There  are 
whole  passages  in  the  symphonies  of  Haydn, 
Mozart,  and  Beethoven  where  one  tune  is 
given  out  against  an  accompaniment  of  chords, 
and  a  lyric  composer  like  Schubert  employs 
[  203  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

counterpoint  somewhat  rarely.  But  in  the 
greatest  symphonies  the  predominating  method 
of  expression  is  through  polyphony. 

In  writing  about  counterpoint  I  have  dwelt 
on  the  rhythmic  quality  in  melody,  and  have 
stated  that  a  well-defined  and  varied  rhythm 
is  essential  to  contrapuntal  treatment.  I  might 
almost  have  said  that  all  good  melody  depends 
on  rhythm.  I  do  say  —  expecting  many  a  si- 
lent protest  from  certain  of  my  readers  —  that 
all  the  greatest  melodies  have  a  finely  adjusted 
rhythm,  and  I  apply  this  statement  to  all  mel- 
ody from  the  folk-song  to  the  present  time. 
I  might  enumerate  beautiful  melodies  whose 
effect  depends  on  other  properties  than  rhythm, 
—  as  the  second  melody  in  Chopin's  Noc- 
turne in  G  major,  opus  37,  number  2,  —  but 
I  should  add  that,  as  melody,  existing  by  it- 
self, it  is  not  fine  and  the  reason  is  that  its 
rhythm  is  monotonous.1  And  when  I  say  it  is 
not  fine,  I  mean  that  it  is  not  highly  imagina- 
tive, and  that  it  depends  too  much  on  its  har- 
monization. And  when,  in  turn,  I  say  that,  I 

1  As  examples  of  melodies  with  finely  adjusted  rhythms  I 
may  cite  the  theme  of  the  slow  movement  of  Beethoven's 
pianoforte  sonata,  opus  13,  and  that  of  the  slow  movement  of 
Brahms' s  pianoforte  quartette,  opus  60. 


THE  SYMPHONY 

mean,  perforce,  that  it  is  too  emotional.  The 
difference  between  such  a  theme  and  one  with 
a  really  fine  rhythm  is  the  difference  between 
Poe's  "The  Raven"  and  Keats's  "Ode  to  a 
Grecian  Urn."  In  the  former  the  mind  is  be- 
ing continually  lulled  by  the  soft  undulation 
of  the  rhythms  and  rhymes;  in  the  latter  the 
mind  is  being  continually  stimulated  by  their 
complexities.  Yet  Keats's  ode  is  as  unified  as 
Poe's  lyric.  There  are  melodies  for  songs  for 
the  pianoforte,  for  the  violin,  and  for  the  or- 
chestra ;  there  are  sonata  melodies  and  there 
are  symphonic  melodies  just  as  there  is  a  shape 
for  a  hatchet  and  a  shape  for  a  pair  of  scissors 
—  which  is  only  stating  once  again  the  old 
law  that  the  style  must  suit  the  medium  of 
expression,  or  that  the  shape  must  suit  the 
uses  to  which  a  thing  is  put.  Symphonic 
themes,  in  contradistinction  to  themes  for 
songs  or  short  pianoforte  pieces,  or  dances, 
should  be  inconclusive;  they  are  valuable  for 
what  they  presage  rather  than  for  what  they 
state,  and  they  should  indicate  their  own  des- 
tiny. The  four  notes  with  which  the  Fifth 
Symphony  of  Beethoven  begins  are  so,  —  in 
fact  the  whole  theme  is  valueless  by  itself, — 


Music  AND  LIFE 

but  they  contain  enough  pent-up  energy  to 
vitalize  not  only  the  first  movement,  but  the 
three  which  follow  it.  If  it  were  possible  for 
each  reader  of  these  words  to  hear  —  as  an 
interlude  to  his  reading  —  a  series  of  great 
symphonic  melodies,  and  if  he  would  listen  to 
them  carefully,  he  would  find  almost  every 
one  to  contain  a  finely  adjusted  rhythm. 

Symphonic  themes  present  certain  difficul- 
ties to  the  listener  whose  understanding  of 
melody  is  limited  to  a  square-cut  strophic  tune. 
He  is  accustomed  to  a  certain  musical  punc- 
tuation —  a  comma  (so  to  speak)  after  the 
first  and  third  lines  of  the  music,  a  semicolon 
after  the  second,  and  a  period  at  the  end. 
And  when  he  gets  an  extra  period  thrown  in 
(as  he  does  after  the  third  line  of  the  tune 
"  America ")  he  is  all  the  happier.  When  he 
hears  the  opening  theme  of  the  "  Eroica " 
Symphony  break  in  two  in  the  middle  and  fall 
apart,  he  gets  discouraged,  for  his  musical  im- 
agination has  not  been  sufficiently  developed 
to  see  that  that  very  breaking  apart  presages 
the  tragic  turmoil  of  the  whole  movement. 
When  Brahms  gives  out,  in  the  opening  meas- 
ures of  his  Third  Symphony,  two  themes  at 
[  206  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

once,  he  does  not  fathom  the  element  of  strife 
which  is  involved,  and  so  cannot  follow  its 
progress  to  the  final  triumph  of  one  of  them. 

But  the  symphony  contains  everything,  and 
there  is  a  place  in  it  for  lyric  melody,  provided 
the  flight  be  long  and  sweeping.  The  "slow 
movement "  of  a  symphony  contains  such 
themes,  but  they  are  not  content  to  be  merely 
fine  melodies.  They,  too,  must  contain  some 
potentiality  which  is  afterwards  realized.  The 
best  and  most  familiar  example  will  be  found 
in  Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony,  where  the 
first  rhythmic  unit  (contained  in  the  first  three 
notes)  of  the  beautiful  romantic  theme  de- 
taches itself  and  pursues  an  almost  scandalous 
existence  full  of  delicate  pranks  and  grimaces, 
and  comic  quips  and  turns,  now  gentle,  now 
ironic,  now  pretending  to  be  sentimental,  un- 
til it  finally  rejoins  the  theme  again.  This 
piece  is  a  romance  touched  with  comedy  —  a 
romance  great  enough  to  suffer  all  the  by-play 
without  the  least  dilution  of  its  quality. 

Any  attempt  in  a  book  like  this  to  explain 

the  intricacies  of  harmonic  development  as  it 

is  seen  in  the  symphony  must  be  inconclusive. 

Harmony  is,  in  itself,  less  tangible  than  either 

[  207  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

rhythm  or  melody,  for  it  lacks  to  a  consider- 
able extent  the  element  of  continuity.  I  mean 
by  this  that  groups  of  harmonies  do  not  pos- 
sess coherence  in  relation  to  each  other.  They 
do  not  stay  in  the  memory  as  a  line  of  melody 
does;  the  impression  we  get  from  them  is 
fleeting.  It  may  touch  with  light  or  shade  one 
brief  moment  in  a  piece  of  music  (as  it  fre- 
quently does  in  Schubert's  compositions);  it 
may  produce  a  bewildering  riot  of  color  (as  in 
ultra-modern  music) ;  or  it  may  cover  the 
whole  piece  with  a  subdued  shadow  (as  in  the 
slow  movement  of  Franck's  quintette).  But 
the  real  office  of  harmony  is  to  serve  melody. 
I  mean  by  this  that  when  two  or  more  melo- 
dies sound  together  they  make  harmony  at 
every  point  of  contact,  and  this  harmony,  in- 
cidental to  the  movement  of  melodic  parts, 
has  a  reality  which  chords  by  themselves  can- 
not acquire.  And  the  whole  justification  for 
many  of  the  sounds  in  ultra-modern  music 
lies  in  this  one  perfectly  correct  theory.  Not 
that  the  laws  must  not  be  obeyed  —  as  they 
frequently  are  not;  not  that  a  composer  may 
violate  nature,  and  do  what  he  likes.  He 
must,  as  of  old,  justify  in  reason  all  the  disso- 
[  208  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

nances  arising  from  his  melodic  adventures. 
He  should  remember  Bach,  whose  melodies 
clash  in  never-to-be-forgotten  stridence,  strik- 
ing forth  such  flashes  of  strange  beauty  as  can 
only  come  from  a  war  of  themes. 

The  symphony  is,  then,  an  arrangement  of 
rhythms,  melodies,  and  harmonies.  Each  of 
these  three  elements  has  a  life  of1  its  own,— 
tHeTrhythms,  talceti  altogether,  have  their  owir 
coherence,  the  melodies  theirs,  and  the  har- 
monies theirs,  —  but  each  belongs  to  the  whole. 
The  rhythm  of  Poe's  "  For  Annie"  would  be 
an  impossible  rhythm  with  which  to  carry  for- 
ward the  purposes  of  any  part  of  "The  Ring 
and  the  Book."  Equally  useless  would  be  the 
rhythms  of  Schubert's  "Unfinished"  Sym- 
phony to  carry  forward  the  purposes  of  Bee- 
thoven's Ninth.  The  whole  structure  of  Poe's 
poem  would  disintegrate  if  one  single  word 
fell  out  of  place;  so  would  the  fabric  of  a 
Schubert  melody  were  a  note  destroyed. 

In  every  direction,  wherever  we  look,  this 
cohesion  of  all  objects  in  themselves,  this  blend- 
ing of  all  objects  into  a  greater  body,  reveals 
itself.  This  is  the  basis  of  all  religious  belief, 
of  a  novel,  of  the  composition  of  a  picture,  or 
[  209  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

of  life  itself.  To  say  that  a  symphony  is  made 
up  of  separate  elements,  that  each  of  these  ele- 
ments has  a  life  of  its  own,  and  that  they  all 
unite  in  a  common  purpose,  is  to  state  a  tru- 
ism. And  to  suppose  that  a  symphony  can  be 
understood  without  an  understanding  of  all  its 
elements  is  to  suppose  an  absurdity. 

IV.    TONE  COLOR  AND  DESIGN 

Such  has  been  the  development  of  the  ele- 
ments of  symphonic  music.  The  processes  I 
have  described  are  the  natural  processes  of  an 
art  which  is  continually  striving  for  wider  and 
deeper  expression.  And,  speaking  humanly, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  within  ourselves 
there  should  take  place  a  complete  analogue  to 
that  development  and  to  those  processes.  The 
connection  between  ourselves  and  the  sounds 
may  graduate  all  the  way  from  complete  un- 
consciousness of  their  significance  (even  though 
we  hear  all  the  sounds  clearly)  to  that  state 
wherein  they  strike  fire  in  our  souls,  and  there 
passes  between  the  imagination  of  the  com- 
poser and  our  own  that  spark  of  undying  fire 
which  illumines  our  whole  being.  For  in  the 
last  analysis  it  is  not  so  much  the  music  that 


THE  SYMPHONY 

communicates  itself  as  it  is  the  soul  of  the 
composer  reaching  us  over  whatever  stretch 
of  time.  He  who  creates  beauty  is  im- 
mortal. 

Is  not  this  what  we  seek?  Is  not  this  the 
object  of  all  beauty  everywhere  ?  Is  it  not  al- 
ways trying  us  to  see  if  we  are  in  tune?  —  as, 
indeed,  everything  else  is :  labor,  love,  ob- 
jects, knowledge,  religion  —  all  these  await 
our  answer. 

But  I  should  not  leave  this  part  of  my  sub- 
ject without  setting  forth  the  relation  between 
these  elements  of  symphonic  music  and  the 
orchestral  instruments  by  means  of  which  they 
find  expression.  I  do  not  wish  to  attempt  here 
any  account  of  orchestration,  as  such,  but 
rather  to  point  out  that  in  symphonic  music 
it  is  by  the  quality  of  tone  that  the  essence  of 
an  idea  is  conveyed.  The  tone  of  the  instru- 
ment is  like  the  inflection  of  the  voice  in 
speaking,  wherein  the  truth  is  conveyed  al- 
though you  speak  an  untruth.  An  oath  might 
be  a  prayer  but  for  the  inflection. 

The  pianoforte  or  the  violin,  or  any  other 
single  instrument,  has  but  little  variety  of 
tone ;  the  orchestra,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
[an  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

not  only  four  distinct  groups  of  instruments, 
each  group  having  its  own  tone  quality,  but 
within  two  of  these  groups1  there  are  consid- 
erable differences  in  what  is  called  "  tone  color." 
It  is  of  no  great  importance  to  know  that  the 
solo  near  the  beginning  of  the  slow  move- 
ment of  the  Cesar  Franck  symphony  is  played 
on  an  English  horn,  but  it  is  important  to  feel 
the  quality  of  the  tone,  and  to  realize  how 
largely  the  effect  of  the  theme  depends  on  it. 
For  some  obscure  reason  many  people  remain 
insensitive  to  qualities  of  tone  color.  (Perhaps 
they  have  received  their  musical  education  at 
the  pianoforte  which,  under  unskillful  hands, 
differs  only  in  loud  and  soft.)  One  so  seldom 
observes  a  listener  even  amused  by  the  antics 
of  Beethoven's  double-basses,  and  yet,  in  at 
least  four  of  his  symphonies,  their  behavior 
is  at  times  extremely  ludicrous.  He  whose 
humor  ranges  all  the  way  from  the  most  deli- 
cate, ironic  smile  to  a  terrible,  tragic  laughter, 
wherein  joy  and  sorrow  meet,  —  as  meet  they 
must  when  either  presses  far,  —  he  achieves 

1  In  the  "wood- wind"  group,  so  called,  there  are  flutes, 
oboe,  clarinets,  bassoons,  English  horn,  etc.;  in  the  brass, 
there  are  trumpets,  French  horns,  trombones,  tubas,  etc. 


THE  SYMPHONY 

these  remarkable  effects  largely  by  means  of 
the  tone  quality  of  the  instruments.  In  his 
Fifth  Symphony  he  creates  the  most  thrilling 
effect  by  means  of  some  score  or  more  of  reit- 
erated notes  in  the  soft,  muffled  tones  of  the 
kettle-drum.  In  the  finale  to  the  First  Sym- 
phony of  Brahms  it  is  the  tone  of  the  French 
horn,  and  again  of  the  flute,  that  creates  for 
us  such  profound  illusions  of  beauty  as  pierce 
to  our  very  soul.  From  the  depths  of  the 
orchestra  the  horn  chants  its  ennobled  song; 
then  follows  the  dulcet  blow-pipe  of  the  flute 
singing  the  same  magic  theme.  These  varied 
tones  succeeding  one  another,  or  melting  one 
into  the  other  —  these  are  the  colors  that  ani- 
mate and  beautify  the  forms  into  which  the 
thoughts  fall.  What  delicate  nonsense  filigree 
the  violins  draw  in  the  slow  movement  of 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony;  how  sepulchral 
the  bassoon  with  its  mock  sadness ;  what  a 
vibrant  quality  do  the  violoncellos  and  the 
contra-basses  give  to  the  great  melody  in  the 
finale  to  the  Ninth;  with  what  poignancy  does 
the  clarinet  give  voice  to  the  sentiment  of 
the  second  theme  in  the  slow  movement  of 
Brahms's  Third  Symphony.  How  luxurious 


Music  AND  LIFE 

and  v^vid  is  the  application  of  all  these  varied 
hues  to  the  design. 

A  fine  singing  voice  has,  perhaps,  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  tone  colors,  but  the  sensibility 
of  many  people  seems  to  be  limited  to  that 
alone.  In  fact  the  love  of  singing  is,  in  many 
cases,  merely  a  sentimental  thrill  unconnected 
with  any  intellectual  process  and  entirely  de- 
void of  imagination.  In  the  orchestra  the  tone 
of  the  instrument  is  to  the  theme  itself  what 
the  color  is  to  the  rose.  It  is  much  more  than 
that,  of  course,  because  it  is  at- any  time  both 
retrospective  and  prospective ;  this  tone  color 
is  a  darker  or  lighter  shade  of  thaty  or,  per- 
chance, another  hue  entirely.  The  colors  shift 
from  moment  to  moment  always  as  a  part  of 
the  design  rather  than  as  mere  color. 

Taking  it  all  together  —  rhythm,  meter, 
melody,  harmony,  and  tone  color  —  this  sub- 
stance of  a  symphony  is  a  wonderful  thing. 
Nothing  quite  so  delicately  organized  has  ever 
been  created  by  the  mind  and  the  imagination 
of  man.  With  an  interplay  of  parts  almost 
equal  to  that  of  a  finely  adjusted  machine,  it 
seems  to  go  where  it  wills  to  go  regardless  of 
anything  but  a  whim.  How  marvelously  does 


THE  SYMPHONY 

it  express  both  the  actions  and  the  dreams  of 
human  beings;  how  true  is  it  to  their  deeper 
consciousness  —  a  consciousness  that  dimly 
fathoms  both  life  and  death  ;  that  knows  it- 
self to  have  come  from  across  the  ages,  and  feels 
itself  to  be  a  part  of  the  ages  to  come.  It  is 
just  as  likely  that  life  is  a  brief,  shadowed 
moment  in  an  endless  light,  as  that  it  is  "  a 
rapid,  blinking  stumble  across  a  flick  of  sun- 
shine." 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  SYMPHONY  (continued) 

I.    THE  UNITY  OF  THE  SYMPHONY 

FOR  the  ordinary  listener  to  a  symphony  the 
one  great  difficulty  lies  in  "making  sense  "  out 
of  it  as  a  whole.  He  enjoys  certain  themes 
and  is,  perhaps,  able  to  follow  their  devious 
wanderings,  but  he  retains  no  comprehensive 
impression  of  the  symphony  as  a  complete 
thing,  and  he  may  even  never  conceive  it  as 
anything  more  than  a  series  of  interesting  or 
uninteresting  passages  of  music.  Now,  it  is 
obvious  that  an  art  of  pure  sound,  if  it  is  to 
have  any  significance  at  all,  must  have  com- 
plete coherence  within  itself,  and  that  the  longer 
the  sounds  go  on  the  more  necessary  does  this 
coherence  become.  This  is,  of  course,  the  prob- 
lem of  all  music.  Even  opera  must  have  a  cer- 
tain musical  coherence,  for  it  cannot  depend 
entirely  on  being  held  together  by  the  text 
and  action  ;  even  the  song  must  make  musical 
sense  in  addition  to  what  sense  (by  chance) 
there  is  in  the  words.  Give  what  glowing,  what 


THE  SYMPHONY 

romantic,  even  what  definite  title  you  will  to 
a  piece  of  programme  music,  —  call  it  uThe 
Hebrides,"  or  "  Death  and  Transfiguration," 
or  descend  to  such  a  title  as  "A  Simple  Con- 
fession," —  you  must  still  give  your  music 
coherence  in  itself.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
titles  of  pieces  of  programme  music  do  not 
lessen  the  composer's  responsibilities  in  the 
least,  and  there  is  no  fine  piece  of  such  music 
in  existence  that  does  not  obey  the  general 
laws  of  form  as  applied  to  music.  The  title  is, 
after  all,  merely  a  suggestion,  an  indication, 
an  atmosphere.  Schumann's  "The  Happy 
Farmer  "  is  merely  jolly ;  it  is  not  even  bu- 
colic, and  you  hunt  for  the  farmer  in  vain  ; 
"Traumerei"  is  made  rhythmically  vague  in 
order  to  create  the  illusion  of  reverie,  but  has, 
nevertheless,  complete  musical  coherence; 
"  Tod  und  Verklarung  "  of  Strauss  contains 
no  evidence  of  sacrificing  its  form  to  its  so- 
called  "subject,"  and  the  Wagnerian  kit  motif 
is  suggestive  and  not  didactic. 

The  development  of  form  in  the  symphony 
is  too  large  a  subject  to  be  covered  here,  but 
there  are  certain  fundamental  aspects  of  it  upon 
which  I  may  dwell  with  safety,  since  they  obey 

f*»7] 


laws  which  apply  everywhere.  To  make  clear 
what  I  mean  let  me  say  that  an  art  whose  fun- 
damental quality  is  movement  must  have  for 
its  problem  the  disposition  within  a  certain 
length  of  time  of  a  certain  group  of  themes 
or  melodies.  The  distinction  between  this  art 
and  that  of  painting  is  that  in  music  the  ques- 
tion is  "  When  ?  "  in  painting  "  Where  ?  "  In 
this  sense  literature  is  nearer  music  than  is 
painting,  and  I  shall  shortly  point  out  some 
analogies  between  literary  and  musical  forms. 
I  stated  in  the  first  chapter  the  fundamental 
synthetic  principle  of  music,  which  is  that  no 
one  series  of  sounds  formed  into  a  melody  can 
long  survive  the  substitution  of  other  series, 
unless  there  be  given  some  restatement,  or,  at 
least,  some  reminder  of  the  first.  There  is  no 
musical  form  that  does  not  pay  tribute  directly 
or  indirectly  to  this  principle.  And  this,  much 
modified  by  the  medium  of  language,  applies 
also  to  literature.  Most  novels  contain  near 
the  end  a  "  looking  backward  over  traveled 
roads  ";  a  too  great  digression  from  any  thesis 
requires  a  certain  restatement  of  it.  The  first 
appearance  of  Sandra  Belloni  is  heralded  by 
her  singing  in  the  wood  near  the  Poles'  coun- 


THE  SYMPHONY 

try  house.  The  epilogue  to  "Vittoria"  closes 
with  the  scene  in  the  cathedral :  "  Carlo  Mer- 
thyr  Ammiani,  standing  between  Merthyr  and 
her,  with  old  blind  Agostino's  hands  upon  his 
head.  And  then  once  more,  and  but  for  once, 
her  voice  was  heard  in  Milan."  The  unessen- 
tial characters  and  motives  of  Sandra  Belloni 
disappear  in  "Vittoria"  —  Mrs.  Chump,  an 
unsuccessful  essay  in  Dickens,  finds  a  deserved 
oblivion  ;  so  do  the  "  Nice  Feelings"  and  the 
"  Fine  Shades";  but  the  presence  of  Merthyr 
in  the  cathedral  is  as  necessary  to  that  situa- 
tion as  is  the  absence  of  Wilfred.  "  War  and 
Peace  "  would  be  an  inchoate  mass  of  persons, 
scenes,  and  events,  were  it  not  for  certain  ret- 
rospects here  and  there  which  hold  the  whole 
mass  together.  "The  Idiot"  is  a  striking  il- 
lustration, for  the  early  part  of  Mishkin's 
career  only  appears  in  the  sixth  chapter,  as  if 
to  tide  over  more  successfully  the  vastness  of 
the  scheme;  and  the  final  chapter  brings  back 
most  vividly  the  experiences  of  his  boyhood. 
The  sonnet  is  the  most  concise  example  of 
this  process,  and  I  do  not  need  to  dwell  on 
the  precision  with  which  it  illustrates  it. 
One  great  difference  exists,  however,  be- 


Music  AND  LIFE 

tween  music  and 'literature,  and  that  is  in  the 
number  of  its  subjects  or  characters.  "  War 
and  Peace,"  to  take  an  extreme  example,  con- 
tains scores  of  characters,  while  a  whole  sym- 
phony would  usually  contain  not  more  than 
twelve  or  fourteen  themes.  The  prime  reason 
for  this  is  that  themes  have  no  established  law 
of  association,  and  so  do  not  represent  some- 
thing else  with  which  we  are  already  familiar 
as  do  names  of  persons  in  books.  We  remem- 
ber the  names  of  such  characters  as  Joseph 
Andrews  or  Tom  Jones,  or  even  Dr.  Port- 
soaken,  for,  although  they  lived  a  long  time 
ago,  we  have  enough  word  association  to  con- 
tain their  names  and  we  can  understand  them 
and  can  follow  the  devious  courses  of  their  ad- 
ventures and  the  philosophy  of  life  they  rep- 
resent. (The  absence  of  this  association  makes 
it  difficult  for  us  to  remember  the  characters 
in  Russian  novels.)  When  we  hear  a  musical 
theme,  however,  we  have  to  remember  it  as 
such. 

I  have  frequently  stated  the  somewhat  ob- 
vious fact  that  music  obeys  general  aesthetic 
laws,  and  the  foregoing  is  intended  to  show 
how  these  laws  are  modified  by  the  peculiar 


THE  SYMPHONY 

properties  of  sound.  A  symphony  in  this 
sense,  then,  is  a  coherent  arrangement  of 
themes.  This  brings  me  to  the  important 
question  of  the  detachment  or  the  unification 
of  the  several  movements  of  a  symphony.  Is 
a  symphony  one  thing  or  four  ?  Should  we 
listen  to  it  as  a  unit,  or  as  separate  contrasting 
pieces  strung  together  for  convenience  ?  The 
conventional  answer  to  these  questions  —  the 
answer  given  by  the  textbooks  —  is  that  a  few 
symphonies  transfer  themes  from  one  move- 
ment to  another,  but  that,  speaking  generally, 
a  symphony  is  a  collection  of  four  separate 
pieces  contrasted  in  speed  and  in  sentiment, 
etc.  Now  I  wish  to  combat  this  theory  as  vig- 
orously as  possible,  and  I  should  like  to  rely 
solely  on  general  aesthetic  laws,  and  say  that 
no  great  work  of  art  could,  by  any  possibility, 
be  based  on  such  a  heterogeneous  plan  as  that. 
Or  I  might  base  my  opinion  on  psychology 
and  say  that,  since  there  are  four  different 
movements,  different  in  general  and  in  partic- 
ular characteristics, — one  containing  themes 
which  evolve  as  they  proceed,  producing  the 
effect  of  struggle  toward  a  goal,  another  suited 
to  states  of  sentiment,  another  for  concise  and 


Music  AND  LIFE 

vivid  action,  and  so  forth,  —  and  since  the 
mind  of  a  great  man  is  a  microcosm  of  the 
world  and  contains  everything,  it  follows,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  that  he  tries  to  fuse  his 
symphony  into  one  by  filling  its  several  parts 
with  the  various  elements  of  himself,  a  process 
that  has  been  going  on  ever  since  there  has 
been  any  music  at  all.  The  composer  is  not 
four  men,  nor  is  his  mind  separated  into  com- 
partments. One  symphony  will  differ  from 
another  because  it  will  represent  a  different 
stage  in  his  development,  but  any  one  sym- 
phony—  unless  arbitrarily  disjointed — will 
express  the  various  phases  of  its  composer's 
nature  at  the  time,  and  will  have  a  corre- 
sponding internal  organism.  This  is  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  soundness  of  this  view  in  the 
great  symphonies  themselves.  I  cannot  specify 
at  length  here,  but  any  reader  having  access 
to  Mozart's,  Beethoven's,  and  Brahms's  sym- 
phonies or  that  of  Cesar  Franck  may  investi- 
gate for  himself.  Let  me  merely  point  out  a 
few  instances  which  I  choose  from  celebrated 
and  familiar  symphonies.  In  the  last  move- 
ment of  the  C  major  of  Mozart  (commonly- 
called  the  "Jupiter")  there  is  a  rapid  figure 
[  222  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

in  the  basses  at  measures  nine  and  ten  which  is 
derived  from  the  beginning  of  the  first  move- 
ment. The  theme  of  the  last  movement  is 
drawn  from  —  is  another  version  of — the  pas- 
sage in  measures  three  and  four  of  the  first 
movement.  In  Beethoven's  "  Eroica"  the  first 
theme  of  the  last  movement  is  drawn  directly 
from  the  first  theme  of  the  first  movement. 
The  theme  of  the  C  major  section  of  the 
"  Marche  Funebre"  is  the  theme  of  the  first 
section  in  apotheosis,  and  each  owes  a  debt  to 
the  first  theme  of  the  first  movement.  Illus- 
trations of  this  principle  could  be  multiplied 
almost  indefinitely,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  there  is  in  all  great  music  this  inward 
coherence.  In  other  words,  form  in  music  is 
not  merely  a  sort  of  framework,  or,  if  you 
please,  a  law  or  precedent,  but  the  expression 
of  an  inward  force. 

Themes  having  no  organic  relation  are,  of 
course,  introduced  in  symphonic  movements 
for  the  play  of  action  against  each  other  which 
results  from  their  antagonism.  The  novel  de- 
pends largely  on  the  same  element.  If  it  were 
not  for  Blifil  there  could  hardly  have  been  a 
Tom  Jones.  Sandra"  Belloni  must  have  Mr. 


Music  AND  LIFE 

Pericles  as  a  foil  to  that  finer  character  of  hers 
which  rises  above  the  prima  donna,  and  she 
needs  Wilfred  and  Merthyr  in  order  to  achieve 
Carlo.  In  short,  the  symphonic  movement  is 
not  unlike  the  novel  which  is  based  on  the 
juxtaposition  of  contrasted  or  antagonistic 
characters  or  elements,  the  struggle  between 
the  two,  and,  finally,  their  reconciliation;  and 
sufficient  analogy  could  be  drawn  between  this 
and  life  itself  to  illustrate  the  principle  as  a 
cardinal  one.  But  I  believe  the  symphony  to 
be  still  in  flux.  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  continue  to  develop  from  within  and  finally 
to  achieve  an  even  greater  inward  coherence 
than  that  already  attained.  This  will  almost 
certainly  not  be  brought  about  by  an  exten- 
sion of  its  outward  form  or  by  an  enlargement 
of  its  resources  —  as  is  the  case  with  many 
modern  symphonies.1  In  brief,  the  composer 
is  an  artist  like  any  other;  he  is  dealing  with 
human  emotions  and  aspirations  as  other  art- 
ists are ;  he  is  subject  to  the  same  laws ;  he, 
too,  draws  a  true  picture  of  human  life  in  true 

1  The  reason  for  this  is  one  to  which  I  referred  in  the  chap- 
ter on  "The  Opera"  —  namely,  that  a  work  of  art  must  not 
overstrain  the  capacities  of  those  human  beings  for  whom  it 
was  intended. 


THE  SYMPHONY 

perspective,  with  all  the  adjustments  of  scene, 
of  persons,  of  motives,  carefully  worked  out 
—  even  though  he  deals  only  with  sound.  It 
is  almost  incredible  that  any  one  should  sup- 
pose otherwise;  the  real  difficulty  is  in  getting 
the  ordinary  person  to  suppose  anything!  So 
I  say  that  the  symphony  is  a  mirror  of  life, 
and  that  all  the  great  symphonies  taken  to- 
gether are  like  a  book  of  life  in  which  every- 
thing is  faithfully  set  forth  in  due  proportion 
and  balance. 

I  have  said  that  the  symphony  contains 
everything  and  that  it  has  room  for  disorder. 
This  is  its  ultimate  purpose.  The  secret  of 
its  power  lies  in  this.  Life  itself  is  an  inexpli- 
cable thing.  The  great  symphony  compresses 
it  into  an  hour  of  perfection  in  which  all  of 
its  elements  are  explicable.  Here  that  dream 
of  man  which  he  calls  by  such  names  as 
"  heaven  "  or  "  happiness,"  and  which  he  has 
always  sought  in  vain,  becomes  not  only  a 
reality,  but  the  only  reality  possible  for  him. 
For  nothing  would  be  more  terrible  than  end- 
less happiness  or  a  located  heaven. 


Music  AND  LIFE 


II.    STAGES  OF  ITS  DEVELOPMENT 

The  history  of  the  symphony  is  the  history 
of  all  art.  It  moves  in  cycles ;  it  marks  a  parab- 
ola. It  began  as  a  nai've  expression  of  feeling; 
it  learned  little  by  little  how  to  master  its  own 
working  material,  and  as  it  mastered  that,  it 
became  more  and  more  conscious  in  its  efforts; 
as  soon  as  new  instruments  for  producing  it 
were  perfected,  it  immediately  expanded  its 
style  to  correspond  to  the  new  possibilities; 
as  its  technique  permitted,  it  continually  sought 
to  grasp  more  and  more  of  the  elements  of 
human  life  and  human  aspiration  and  to  ex- 
press them.  In  Haydn  we  see  it  as  naive,  folk~ 
like,  tuneful  music,  not  highly  imaginative, 
smacking  of  the  soil  —  like  Burns,  but  with- 
out his  deep  human  feeling.  In  Mozart  it 
reaches  a  stage  of  classic  perfection  which  may 
be  compared  to  Raphael's  paintings.  Hardly 
a  touch  of  the  picturesque,  the  romantic,  or 
the  realistic  mars  its  serene  beauty ;  it  smiles 
on  all  alike;  it  is  not  for  you  or  for  me,  —  as 
Schumann  is,  —  but  for  every  one.  And  being 
purely  objective  it  belongs  to  no  time  and  lasts 
forever.  And  how  delightful  are  Mozart's  di- 


THE  SYMPHONY 

gressions.  He  is  like  Fielding,  who,  when  he 
wants  to  philosophize  about  his  story,  proceeds 
to  write  a  whole  chapter  during  which  the  action 
awaits  the  philosopher's  pleasure.  Later  writers 
never  drop  the  argument  for  a  moment;  if 
there  is  a  lull  in  the  action  it  is  somehow  kept 
in  complete  relation  to  the  subject-matter. 
Mozart  often  enlivens  you  with  a  story  by-the- 
way,  but  he  always  manages  to  preserve  the 
continuity  of  his  material.  The  difference 
between  his  method  and  that  of  Brahms,  for 
example,  is  like  that  between  Fielding's  philo- 
sophic interlude  chapters  in  "  Tom  Jones " 
and  Meredith's  "Our  Philosopher,"  who, 
looking  down  from  an  impersonal  height  upon 
the  characters  in  the  story,  interjects  his  Olym- 
pian comment. 

A  new  and  terrific  force  entered  music 
through  Beethoven,  new  to  music,  old  as  the 
human  race  —  namely,  the  spirit  of  revolt. 
The  world  is  always  the  same.  In  its  funda- 
mentals, human  life,  within  our  historical  ret- 
rospect, remains  what  it  was.  An  art  takes 
what  it  can  master — and  no  more.  Music 
was  ready;  the  world  was  in  a  turmoil  at  just 
that  moment,  and  the  result  was  what  we  call 


Music  AND  LIFE 

"  Beethoven."  Mozart  was  his  dawn,  Schu- 
mann and  the  other  Romanticists  his  mys- 
terious and  beautiful  twilight.  He  himself 
represents  at  once  the  spirit  of  revolution,  that 
inevitable  curiosity  which  such  a  period  always 
excites,  and  that  speculative  philosophy  which 
tries  to  piece  the  meaning  of  new  things.  The 
world  was  full  of  flame  ;  battle  thundered  only 
a  few  miles  from  Vienna;  the  spirit  of  equality 
and  fraternity  was  hovering  in  the  air.  Beetho- 
ven's piercing  vision  compassed  all  this.  He 
sounded  the  triumph  of  the  soul  of  man  — 
as  in  the  great  theme  at  the  close  of  the  Ninth 
Symphony;  he  took  the  simplest  of  common 
tunes  and  made  itglorious  —  as  at  the  end  of  the 
"  Waldstein  "  Sonata;  his  imagination  ranged 
at  will  over  men  struggling  in  death-grapple, 
over  the  gods  looking  down  sardonically  on 
the  spectacle.  He  was  the  great  protagonist 
of  democracy,  but  he  was  also  a  great  con- 
structive mind.  He  never  destroyed  anything 
in  music  for  which  he  did  not  have  a  better 
substitute,  and  there  is  hardly  a  note  in  his 
mature  compositions  that  is  not  fixed  in 
nature. 

This  great  force  having  spent  itself,  the  art 
[  "8  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

turns  away  and  starts  in  another  direction  — 
as  it  must.  The  lyric  symphony  of  Schubert 
appears.  His  was  the  most  perfect  song  that 
ever  asked  for  expression  by  the  orchestra. 
With  small  intellectual  power,  with  but  scanty 
education  of  any  sort,  Schubert,  by  the  very 
depth  of  his  instinct,  creates  such  pure  beauty 
as  to  make  intellectualism  seem  almost  pedan- 
tic. He  strings  together  melody  after  melody 
in  "profuse,  unmeditated  art."  He  was  a  pen- 
dant to  Beethoven,  and  often  enough  in  listen- 
ing to  Schubert's  music  we  catch  the  echo  of 
his  great  contemporary.  Then  comes  the  so- 
called  "  Romantic  School  "  of  Schumann  with 
its  tender,  personal  qualities,  its  glamour,  its 
roseate  hues.  Like  all  other  romantic  utterance 
it  had  a  certain  strangeness,  a  certain  detach- 
ment from  reality,  and  a  certain  waywardness 
which  give  it  a  bitter-sweet  flavor  of  its  own. 
Like  all  other  romantic  utterance,  too,  it  was 
impatient  and  refused  to  wait  the  too-slow 
turning  of  the  clock's  hands;  it  is  the  music 
of  youth  and  of  hope.  Its  effect  on  the  de- 
velopment of  the  symphony  was  slight.  It  was 
ill  at  ease  in  the  large  spaces  of  symphonic 
form,  for  its  hues  were  too  changing,  its  moods 
[  229  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

too  shifting,  to  answer  the  needs  of  the  sym- 
phony. No  really  great  symphonic  composer 
appears  between  Schubert  and  Brahms,  but 
during  that  period  the  rich  idiom  of  the  Ro- 
mantic School  had  become  assimilated  as  a 
part  of  the  language  of  music. 

Brahms  using  something  of  this  romantic 
idiom,  but  having  a  broad  feeling  for  con- 
struction, and  firmly  grounded  on  that  one 
stable  element  of  style,  counterpoint,  produced 
four  symphonies  worthy  to  stand  alongside 
the  best.  They  are  restrained  in  style,  for 
Brahms  has  something  of  that  impersonality 
which  is  needed  in  music  as  much  as  in  other 
forms  of  art  (and  one  may  say,  in  passing, 
that  the  greatest  of  all  composers,  Bach,  is  the 
most  impersonal).  The  flexibility  of  the  lan- 
guage of  music  increased  rapidly  during  the 
nineteenth  century  aided  by  Wagner  and  the 
Romanticists,  and  in  Brahms  the  symphony 
becomes  less  didactic  and  more  introspective. 
I  may,  perhaps,  make  the  comparison  between 
music  like  his  and  that  later  stage  of  the  Eng- 
lish novel  wherein  the  author  desires  the  ac- 
tion to  appear  solely  as  the  result  of  the  psy- 
chology of  the  characters,  and  wherein,  also, 


THE  SYMPHONY 

words  are  made  to  answer  new  demands  and 
serve  new  purposes.  Brahms  could  not  have 
said  what  he  did  say  had  he  been  limited  to 
the  style  of  Mozart ;  nor  could  Meredith  had 
he  been  limited  to  the  style  of  Thackeray. 
Brahms's  symphonies,  in  consequence  of  the 
complicated  nature  of  his  style,  are  not  easily 
apprehended  by  the  casual  listener.  Let  a  con- 
firmed lover  of  Longfellow,  or  even  of  Tenny- 
son, take  up  for  the  first  time  "  Love  in  the 
Valley  "  and  he  will  have  the  same  experience. 
Every  word  will  convey  its  usual  meaning  to 
him,  but  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  poem  will 
elude  him.  He  will  go  back  to  "My  Lost 
Youth,"  or  to  "Blow,  Bugles,  Blow,"  for  healing 
from  his  bruises.  Any  one  of  my  readers  who 
has  access  to  Brahms's  First  Symphony  should 
examine  the  passage  which  begins  twenty  meas- 
ures before  thepoco  sostenuto  near  the  end  of  the 
first  movement  if  he  wished  to  understand  some- 
thing of  Brahms's  powers  of  re-creating  his 
material.  Here  is  a  melody  of  great  beauty 
which  is  derived  from  the  opening  phrase  of 
the  symphony,  and  which  has  a  bass  derived 
from  the  first  theme  of  the  first  movement. 
As  it  originally  appeared  it  was  full  of  stress 


Music  AND  LIFE 

as  though  yearning  for  an  impossible  fulfill- 
ment. Here  its  destiny  is  at  last  attained,  and 
the  law  of  its  being  fulfilled.  Music  progresses 
from  one  point  of  time  to  another. 

Contemporaneous  with  Brahms  stands 
Tschaikovsky  to  reveal  how  varied  are  the 
sources  of  musical  expression.  No  two  great 
men  could  be  farther  apart  than  these  —  one 
an  eclectic,  calm,  thoughtful,  and  impersonal, 
restraining  his  utterances  in  order  to  under- 
state and  be  believed ;  the  other  pouring  out 
the  very  last  bitter  drop  of  his  unhappiness 
and  dissatisfaction  entirely  unmindful  of  a 
world  that  distrusts  overstatement  and  has 
only  a  limited  capacity  for  reaction  from  a 
colossal  passion.  Of  Tschaikovsky's  sincerity 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever.  He  so  believed ; 
life  was  to  him  what  we  hear  it  to  be  in  his 
symphonies.  But  life  is  not  like  that.  If  it 
were  we  should  all  have  been  destroyed  long 
since  by  our  own  uncontrollable  inner  fires. 
So,  aside  from  any  technical  considerations, — 
and  he  contributed  nothing  of  importance  to 
the  development  of  the  symphony,  —  Tschai- 
kovsky represents  a  phase  of  life  rather  than 
life  itself.  Dvorak's  "New  World"  Sym- 
[  232  ] 


THE  SYMPHONY 

phony  adds  a  new  and  interesting  element  to 
symphonic  evolution.  Dvorak  was  like  Haydn 
and  Burns,  a  son  of  the  people,  and  the  themes 
he  employs  in  this  symphony  are  essentially 
folk-melodies.  But  where  Haydn  merely  tells 
his  simple  story  with  complete  unconscious- 
ness of  its  possible  connection  with  life  in  gen- 
eral, Dvorak  sees  all  his  themes  in  their  deeper 
significance.  The  "  New  World  "  Symphony 
is  a  saga  retold. 

A  new  phase  in  the  development  of  the 
symphony  appears  in  Cesar  Franck,  whose 
musical  lineage  reaches  back  over  the  whole 
range  of  symphonic  development  and  beyond. 
His  spirit  is  mediaeval.  In  his  one  symphony 
rhythm  plays  a  lesser  part,  and  one  feels  the 
music  to  be  quite  withdrawn  from  the  vivid 
movement  of  life,  and  to  live  in  a  realm  of  its 
own.  Franck  was  one  of  those  rare  spirits  who 
remain  untainted  by  the  world.  His  sym- 
phony is  a  spiritual  adventure  ;  other  sympho- 
nies are  full  of  the  actions  and  reactions  of  the 
real  world  in  which  their  composers  lived. 
This  action  and  reaction  always  depends  for 
its  expression  in  music  on  the  play  and  in- 
ter-play of  rhythmic  figures.  Franck's  sym- 

[  233   ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

phony  broods  over  the  world  of  the  spirit ; 
his  least  successful  themes  are  those  based  on 
action. 

III.    CHAMBER  MUSIC  AS  AN  INTRODUCTION 
TO  SYMPHONIES 

My  object  in  writing  all  this  about  the  form 
and  substance  of  the  symphony,  and  in  draw- 
ing comparisons  between  it  and  the  novel  or 
poetry,  has  not  been  to  lead  my  readers  to 
understand  music  through  the  other  arts,  for 
by  themselves  such  comparisons  are  of  small 
value.  I  have  dwelt  on  these  common  charac- 
teristics of  the  arts  because  they  exist,  because 
they  illuminate  each  other,  and  at  the  same 
time  because  they  are  too  little  considered. 
The  only  way  to  understand  music  is  to  prac- 
tice it,  or,  failing  that,  to  hear  it  under  such 
conditions  as  will  permit  a  certain  opportunity 
for  reflection.  We  are  incapable  of  understand- 
ing symphonic  music  chiefly  because  we  have 
so  little  practice  in  doing  so.  An  occasional 
symphony  concert  is  not  enough.  How  shall 
this  difficulty  be  overcome?  There  is  a  natu- 
ral way  out,  and  it  consists  in  what  is  called 
"  chamber  music."  A  piece  of  chamber  music 


THE  SYMPHONY 

is  a  sort  of  domestic  symphony.  A  string  quar- 
tette, a  pianoforte  or  violin  sonata,  a  trio,  quar- 
tette, quintette,  etc.,  —  these  are  all  little 
symphonies;  the  form  is  almost  identical,  the 
same  devices  of  rhythm,  melody,  harmony, 
counterpoint,  and  so  forth,  are  employed.  In 
chamber  music  paucity  of  idea  cannot  be  cov- 
ered up  by  luxury  of  tone  color;  everything 
is  exposed ;  so  that  only  the  greatest  composers 
have  written  fine  music  in  this  form.  Now,  if 
in  every  community  there  were  groups  of  peo- 
ple who  played  chamber  music  together,  and 
if  these  would  permit  their  friends  to  attend 
when  they  practice,  the  symphony  would  soon 
find  plenty  of  listeners.  Such  rehearsals  would 
give  an  opportunity  to  hear  difficult  passages 
played  over  and  over  again  ;  there  would  be 
time  for  discussion,  and,  above  all,  for  reflec- 
tion. Every  town  and  village  should  have  a 
local  chamber-music  organization  giving  occa- 
sional informal  concerts.  Under  these  circum- 
stances a  sympathetic  intimacy  would  soon  be 
established  between  the  performers  and  listen- 
ers and  the  music  itself.  The  inevitable  and 
indiscriminate  pianoforte  lesson  is  an  obstacle 
to  this  much-desired  arrangement.  Some  of 

[  235  1 


Music  AND  LIFE 

our  children  should  be  taught  the  violin  or 
the  violoncello  in  preference  to  the  pianoforte. 
Then  the  family  circle  could  hear  sonatas  for 
violin  and  pianoforte  by  Bach,  Mozart,  Bee- 
thoven, or  Brahms,  and  would  accomplish  what 
years  of  attendance  at  symphony  concerts 
could  not  bring  about.  Chamber  music  has 
the  great  advantage  of  being  simple  in  detail ; 
one  can  easily  follow  the  four  strands  of  melody 
in  a  string  quartette,  whereas  the  orchestra 
leaves  one  breathless  and  confused.  The  prac- 
tice of  chamber  music  by  amateurs  would  be 
one  of  the  very  best  means  of  building  up 
true  musical  taste.  I  cannot  dwell  too  insist- 
ently on  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  those 
people  who  do  not  care  for  such  music  would 
soon  learn  to  care  for  it  if  they  had  opportu- 
nities to  listen  to  it  under  such  conditions  as 
I  have  described.  The  argument  proves  itself, 
without  the  evidence  —  plentiful  enough  —  of 
individuals  who  have  gone  through  the  expe- 
rience. Furthermore,  by  cultivating  music  in 
this  way,  we  should  gradually  break  down 
some  of  the  social  conditions  which  now  oper- 
ate against  the  art.  If  we  all  knew  more  about 
it  and  loved  it  for  itself,  we  should  give  over 


THE  SYMPHONY 

our  present  adulation  of  technique.  We  should 
put  the  performer  where  he  belongs  as  an  in- 
terpreter of  a  greater  man's  ideas.  By  our  un- 
critical adulations  we  place  him  on  far  too  high 
a  pedestal. 

IV.    THE  PERFORMER  AND  THE  PUBLIC 

I  have  spoken  of  certain  social  conditions 
which  affect  music  unfavorably.  There  has 
been  always  a  certain  outcry  against  music 
because  of  its  supposed  emotionalism.  The 
eye  of  cold  intelligence,  seeing  the  music-lover 
enthralled  by  a  symphony,  raises  its  lid  in  icy 
contempt  for  such  a  creature  of  feeling.  The 
sociologist,  observing  musical  performers,  won- 
ders why  music  seems  to  affect  the  appearance 
and  the  conduct  of  some  of  them  so  unfavor- 
ably. The  pedagogue,  who  has  his  correct  edu- 
cational formula  which  operates  like  an  add- 
ing-machine,  and  automatically  turns  out  a 
certain  number  of  mechanically  educated  chil- 
dren, each  with  a  diploma  clutched  in  a  nervous 
hand  —  he  tolerates  music  because  it  makes  a 
pleasant  break  in  diploma-giving  at  graduation 
time,  and  because  it  pleases  the  parents.  The 
business  man  leaves  music  to  his  wife  and 

[  237  ] 


Music  AND  LIFE 

daughters  and  is  willing  to  subscribe  to  a  sym- 
phony orchestra  provided  he  does  not  have 
to  go  to  hear  it  play.  Now,  if  the  sociologist 
would  put  himself  in  the  place  of  the  singer, 
who,  endowed  by  nature  with  a  fine  voice,  is 
able,  on  account  of  a  public  indifferently  edu- 
cated in  music,  to  gain  applause  and  an  undue 
source  of  money,  even  though  he  has  never 
achieved  education  of  any  sort  whatever  —  if 
the  sociologist  would  but  think  a  little  about 
sociology ,  he  would  perhaps  finally  understand 
that  he  himself  is  very  likely  at  fault.  For  it  is 
very  likely  that  he  knows  almostnothing  of  this 
art  which  is  one  of  the  greatest  forces  at  his 
disposal.  He  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  large 
number  of  persons  who  make  musical  condi- 
tions what  they  are.  Public  performers  are  the 
victims,  not  the  criminals.  We  must  remem- 
ber of  old  how  disastrous  has  been  the  isola- 
tion of  any  class  of  workers  from  their  fellows. 
I  have  referred  in  this  and  in  the  preceding 
chapters  to  certain  unities  in  symphonic  music 
—  in  its  several  elements  of  rhythm,  melody, 
and  harmony,  and  in  the  whole.  I  have  said 
that  every  object  is  unified  in  itself,  and  that 
it  is  a  part  of  a  greater  whole.  In  this  sense  a 


THE  SYMPHONY 

symphony  is  a  living  thing;  every  member 
of  it  has  its  own  function,  and  contributes  a 
necessary  part  to  the  whole.  But  is  not  this 
equally  true  if  we  carry  the  argument  info  life 
itself  and  say  :  Here  is  a  thing  of  beauty  cre- 
ated by  man;  it  is  a  part  of  him  —  one  of  his 
star-gleams ;  can  he  be  complete  if  he  loses  it 
altogether  ?  Can  his  spirit  hope  for  freedom 
if  he  depends  on  his  mind  alone  ?  Is  the  satis- 
faction of  intellectual  or  material  achievement 
enough  ?  Would  he  not  find  in  music  a  realm 
where  he  would  breathe  a  purer  air  and  be 
happier  because  he  would  leave  behind  him 
all  those  unanswerable  questions  which  forever 
cry  a  halt  to  his  intelligence?  Moral  idealism 
is  not  enough  for  the  spirit  of  men  and  women, 
for,  humanity  being  what  it  is,  morality  is 
bound  to  crystallize  into  dogma.  The  Puri- 
tans were  moral  in  their  own  fashion,  but  they 
were  as  far  away  from  what  man's  life  ought 
to  be  —  under  the  stars,  and  with  the  flowers 
blooming  at  his  feet — as  were  the  gay  courtiers 
whom  they  despised.  Intellectual  idealism  is 
not  enough,  because  it  lacks  sympathy.  We 
all  need  something  that  shall  be  entirely  de- 
tached from  life  and,  at  the  same  time,  be 


Music  AND  LIFE 

wholly  true  to  it.  Our  spirit  needs  some  joy- 
ousness  which  objects,  ideas,  or  possessions 
cannot  give  it.  We  must  have  a  world  beyond 
the  one  we  know  —  a  world  not  of  jasper  and 
diamonds,  but  of  dreams  and  visions.  It  must 
be  an  illusion  to  our  senses,  a  reality  to  our 
spirit.  It  must  tell  the  truth  in  terms  we  can- 
not understand,  for  it  is  not  given  to  us  to 
know  in  any  other  way. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CONCLUSION 

most  unfortunate  conditions  sur- 


rounding our  musical  life  is  the  small  part  men 
take  in  it.  This  is  not  altogether  their  fault. 
Their  business  is  engrossing,  and  concert-go- 
ing is  made  difficult  for  them.  There  should 
be  some  music  for  the  business  man  between 
the  time  when  he  leaves  his  office  and  the 
hour  of  his  dinner,  and  it  should  be  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  cause  him  the  minimum  of  trouble 
and  give  him  the  maximum  of  enjoyment. 
This  means  a  half-hour  or  forty  minutes  of 
good  music  available,  say,  at  five  o'clock,  and 
not  too  far  away.  It  means,  also,  that  he  shall 
be  provided  with  a  repetition  of  every  long 
or  complicated  composition  so  that  he  may 
have  a  chance  to  understand  it.  The  average 
listener  hears  a  Brahms  symphony  once  in, 
say,  two  or  three  years,  and  there  is  little 
chance  of  his  finding  it  intelligible.  No  doubt, 
in  course  of  time  this  will  come  about.  No 
doubt,  too,  workers  in  shops  and  offices  will 


Music  AND  LIFE 

by  and  by  be  able  to  hear  a  little  really  fine 
music  at  lunch  time.1  The  influx  of  men  into 
concert  rooms  would  be  of  great  benefit  to  the 
cause  of  music,  as  well  as  to  the  men  them- 
selves. We  should,  after  a  time,  get  rid  of  that 
curious  Anglo-Saxon  idea  that  art  is  effemi- 

o 

nate,  and  should  begin  to  value  it  for  what  it 
really  is.  Whenever  I  think  of  this  mistaken 
notion  the  figure  of  Michael  Angelo  rises  be- 
fore me.  There  was  as  heroic  a  man  as  even 
the  world  of  war  ever  produced  ;  capable  alike 
of  the  Herculean  task  of  the  Sistine  frescoes, 
—  the  actual  physical  labors  of  which  would 
kill  an  ordinary  man  (and  Michael  Angelo 
was  then  over  sixty  years  old),  —  of  the  heroic 
Moses,  and  again  of  that  most  tender  and 
beautiful  of  all  sculpture,  the  Pieta ;  a  stern 
and  noble  nature  capable  of  fighting  for  his 
principles  no  matter  what  the  risk.  Or  I  think 
of  Beethoven,  ill,  lonely,  deaf,  and  poor,  but 
nevertheless  creating  virile  music  of  the  kind 
we  know.  Or  of  Bach,  sturdy  as  an  oak  tree, 
without  recognition  from  the  world,  bringing 
up  a  large  family  on  almost  nothing  a  year, 

1  I  do  not  mean  a  phonographic  record  of  the  tenor  solo  in 
"L'Elisire  d' Amore,"  or  anything  of  that  sort.  I  mean  some- 
thing which  will  be  more  than  a  casual  moment's  entertainment. 


CONCLUSION 

wholesome,  profound,  and  true — the  equal  in 
all  that  goes  to  make  a  man  of  any  "captain 
of  industry,"  any  soldier,  or  any  statesman. 
These  are  the  ones  I  should  match  men  with. 
I  would  have  men  listen  to  the  strains  of  these 
composers,  look  at  the  works  of  that  colossal 
genius  of  Italy  and  ask  themselves:  Is  art 
effeminate  or  am  I  blind  and  deaf? 

But  men,  having  comparatively  little  leisure, 
cannot  be  expected  to  waste  it  on  sentimental 
music  or  on  mere  virtuosity.  _A  violinist  who 
plays  sweet  little  pieces,  or  who  astonishes  you 
by  his  technical  skill,  should  expect  no  re- 
sponse from  human  beings  who  are  at  work 
day  by  day  and  hour  by  hour  facing  the  hard 
facts  of  life.  Men,  dealing  with  exact  laws  or 
under  the  necessities  of  trade  and  barter,  are 
forced  to  distinguish  between  true  and  false, 
between  reality  and  unreality,  for  their  very 
existence  depends  on  so  doing.  I  do  not  mean 
by  this  that  these  common  experiences  of  men 
fit  them  to  understand  great  music,  but  I  think 
men  possess  thereby  a  certain  sense  of  values 
and  a  certain  discrimination  between  what  is 
real  and  what  is  false,  and  that  a  great  piece 
of  real  music  will  find  an  answer  in  them.  I 

[  243   ] 


Music  AND   LIFE 

believe  that  the  opera  has  much  to  do  with  the 
average  man's  attitude  toward  music.  To  spend 
from  three  to  four  hours  in  an  overheated  and 
badly  ventilated  opera  house  after  a  day  of 
business,  and  to  listen  to  the  sort  of  hectic 
emotionalism  which  is  common  in  opera  is 
enough  to  disgust  the  average  business  man 
with  all  music.  How  patient  he  is!  But  Bee- 
thoven, who  loved  and  hated,  and  suffered 
and  triumphed,  we  can  all  understand.  When 
we  come  to  listen  to  the  opening  of  his  violin 
concerto,  for  example,  we  must  all  say:  Here 
is  a  man.  And  when  we  have  compassed  the 
whole  of  that  great  composition  we  shall  learn 
to  say:  Here  is  reality  turned  true  at  last.  We 
shall  then  have  learned  one  of  the  great  lessons 
that  art  teaches  —  namely,  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  world  so  heroic,  so  noble,  or  so  pro- 
found but  that  its  qualities  may  be  increased 
by  the  imagination  and  the  skill  of  the  great 
artist.  For  however  profound  a  human  emo- 
tion may  be  or  however  noble  a  deed,  it  be- 
comes more  profound  or  more  noble  when  it 
is  seen  in  relation  to  the  whole  of  life  and  over 
a  stretch  of  time.  The  artist  gives  it  true  per- 
spective, and  enables  us  really  so  to  see  it. 

[  244  ] 


CONCLUSION 

Dante    the  poet  is  greater  than   Dante  the 
lover. 

B  u  LJfljL-Bka  that  music  should  be  made>{ 
easy  of  access  for  men  is  basejdjchiefly  on  the' 
.  It  is  so-ea*4 


to  become  com- 
pletely submerged  in  the  details  of  life;  and 
the  round  of  daily  acts  and  daily  associations 
does,  in  course  of  time,  completely  engulf 
many  people,  so  that  they  only  catch  glimpses 
of  something  beyond  —  glimpses  of  a  prom- 
ised land  into  which  they  never  enter.  I  can 
conceive  almost  any  business  as  being  inter- 
esting in  itself;  the  "game"  of  life  has  its  own 
rewards  ;  and  there  is  no  trade,  no  profession, 
no  business  that  does  not  offer  some  play  to 
the  imagination.  But  jzvery.  weight  needs  a 
counterbalance,  and  every  human  being  whose 
daily  occupation  is  full  of  practical  detail  must 
save  himself  or  herself  by  some  equal  force  in 
the  opposite  direction.  The  law  is  as  old  as 
life  itself.  The  best  preparation  for  an  educa- 
tion in  engineering  is  a  course  in  the  classics, 
and  the  man  who  grinds  all  things  in  the  mill 
of  business  eventually  goes  into  the  hopper 
himself. 


Music  AND   LIFE 

But  love  of  beauty  is  a  secret  and  inviolate 

thing.  Our  tendency  to-day  is  to  seek  our  sal- 
vation —  of  whatever  kind  —  in  the  crowd. 
WeTorm  literary  and  musical  clubs,  and  drama 
leagues,  and  art  circles  to  accomplish  what 
each  person  should  do  alone.  This  is  an  old 
human  fallacy.  To  attempt  to  be  literary  or 
artistic  or  socialistic  or  religious  by  means  of 
an  organization  is  to  waive  the  whole  question. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  being  literary  and 

— ......    4  v —  j 

that  is  to  love  good  literature  and  to  read  it  in 
privacy  ;  there  is  only  one  way  to  understand 
the  drama  and  that  is  to  read  by  yourself  the 
great  plays  from  ./Eschylus  onward,  and  to 
see  as  many  good  plays  as  possible.  I  know 
that  it  is  impossible  to  hear  the  symphonies 
of  Beethoven  except  with  some  thousands  of 
other  people ;  nevertheless,  you  are  yourself 
alone,  and,  by  yourself,  you  must  solve  the 
mystery.  Never  can  there  be  a  more  complete 
isolation  of  the  individual  than  when,  sitting 
with  the  crowd,  a  piece  of  fine  music  begins. 
Never  is  your  own  individuality  so  precious 
to  you  as  then.  Straight  to  your  soul  come 
these  sounds,  automatically  separating  all  the 
diviner  part  of  you  from  the  lower,  singling 


CONCLUSION 

out  what  is  commonly  inarticulate  and  incho- 
ate, and  fanning  into  life  again  that  smothered 
spark  which  never  wholly  dies.  How  impos- 
sible it  is  to  look  at  pictures  with  other  people. 
The  mind  and  the  imagination  demand  free- 
dom to  wander  at  will,  to  ponder,  to  specu- 
late. What  passes  from  the  picture  to  you, 
and  from  you  to  the  picture,  is  a  sort  of  trem- 
bling recognition,  too  delicate  to  be  shared, 
too  intimate  to  be  uttered.  So  it  is  with  books. 
You  need  silence  and  retirement  so  as  to  feel 
the  perspective  of  knowledge,  so  that  your 
mind  may  wander  through  whatever  courses 
open  to  it. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that,  in  Amer- 
ica, women  have  now  both  leisure  and  inde- 
pendence to  pursue  the  arts  and  to  satisfy 
their  desire  for  what  is  called  "  culture,"  and 
that  in  this  respect  they  have  taken  the  place 
frequently  occupied  by  men.  The  most  charac- 
teristic element  in  this  situation  is,  however, 
that  in  the  pursuit  of  intellectual  or  artistic 
advancement,  woman  joins  aclub!  These  clubs 
are  of  very  great  use  to  the  individuals  who 
belong  to  them  and  to  the  communities  in 
which  they  flourish  when  they  undertake  —  as 


they  frequently  do — the  betterment  of  social 
conditions.  Any  one  familiar  with  what  they 
have  accomplished  in  this  respect  must  pay 
them  a  real  tribute.  But,  in  their  pursuit  of 
"culture"  they  have  been  less  successful, and 
for  the  reasons  already  outlined  here.  They 
pursue  too  many  subjects,  and  they  dissipate 
their  energies.  But  above  all,  they  seem  uncon- 
scious of  the  fundamental  principle  of  educa- 
tion which  is  that  one  really  educates  one's  self. 
For  education,  after  all,  consists  in  the  gradual 
enlargement  of  one's  own  perceptions  through 
coming  in  contact  with  greater  minds,  and  its 
processes  are  secret  and  intensely  personal.  As 
you  read  "  The  Idiot,"  for  example,  you  con- 
nect Mishkin  with  Lohengrin,  Parsifal,  the 
Arthurian  legends,  or  even  with  Christ.  The 
extraordinary  account  of  his  thoughts  as  he 
falls  in  the  epileptic  fit,  and  his  use  of  the 
words,  "And  there  was  no  more  time,"  bring 
up  a  whole  fascinating  sequence  of  psycholog- 
ical speculations.  The  character  of  Nastasya 
calls  to  your  memory  scores  of  other  charac- 
ters from  Kundry  down  to  Sonia,  and,  as  you 
read,  the  whole  warp  and  woof  of  life,  shot 
through  and  through  with  its  drab  and  scarlet, 

[  '48  ] 


CONCLUSION 

flashes  before  you.  Now,  these  contacts  are 
as  nothing  if  some  one  else  makes  them.  The 
spark  must  strike  in  your  own  imagination. 
You  yourself  must  feel  the  current  of  this 
magnetism  which  reaches  from  the  earth  to 
the  stars  and  makes  all  things  akin.  A  good 
book  should  be  a  provocation  to  the  reader. 
A  club  for  "culture"  is  a  collection  of  human 
beings  each  hoping  for  vicarious  salvation 
through  the  other. 

Women's  clubs  not  only  waste  energy  in 
their  pursuit  of  knowledge,  but  they  debilitate 
the  intellectual  strength  of  the  individual 
woman.  Nothing  could  be  worse  for  the  mind 
than  the  peaceful  acceptance  of  the  point  of 
view  of  another  without  resistance  and  with- 
out the  test  of  your  own  thoughts  and  your 
own  personality.  Smatterings  of  knowledge 
are  almost  useless.  Nothing  is  yours  until  you 
make  it  so. 

The,E£latkm  between  mu&icandJifeJs»then,    V 
an  intimate  and  vital  relation.    Any  person, 
young  or  old,  who  does  not  sing  and  to  whom 
music  has  no  meaning,  is  by  just  so  much  a 
poorer  person  in  all  that  goes  to  make  life 


Music  AND  LIFE 

happy,  joyous,  and  significant.  Any  commu- 
nity which  employs  no  form  of  musical  ex- 
pression is  by  just  so  much  inarticulate  and 
disorganized  as  a  community.  Any  church 
that  buys  its  music  and  never  produces  any 
of  its  own  loses  just  so  much  in  spiritual 
power. 

S  We  all  need  music  because  it  is  a  fluent, 
free,  and  beautiful  form  of  expression  for  those 
deeper  impulses  of  ours  which  are  denied  ex- 
ipression  by  words.  Our  speech  is  too  highly 
^specialized ;  we  discriminate  with  words  instead 
of  with  inflections  and  gestures ;  we  smother 
our  natural  expressiveness ;  we  hold  words 
to  be  synonyms  of  thought,  whereas  thought 
is  half  feeling  and  instinct  and  imagination, 
no  one  of  which  can  really  find  issue  in  exact 
terms.  All  great  literature  is  inexact. 

Music  frees  -us.  Not  only  does  it  let  each 
of  us  say  for  himself  what  he  cannot  say  in 
words,  but,  at  its  best,  it  reveals  to  us  a  higher 
reach  of  life,  detached,  yet  a  part  of  the  inmost 
being  of  us  all.  When  we  truly  respond  to  it, 
there  is  set  up  in  us  a  certain  harmonious 
vibration  which  tunes  us  to  one  another,  to 
the  mother  earth,  the  everlasting  sea,  and  to 


CONCLUSION 

that  larger  world  of  suns,  stars,  and  planets 
of  which  they  are  a  part. 

Nothing  ever  dies.  What  we  call  death  is 
only  a  transformation  from  one  form  of  life  to 
another.  All  the  music  that  ever  was  still 
sounds;  all  the  music  that  is  to  be  still  slum- 
bers. Life  and  death  are  one,  and,  in  the  truest 
sense,  the  whole  universe  is  a  song. 


THE    END 


<Kbt 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


QUARTER  IftAN 

OvJ-O 

MAT  2  3 1967 


NMF26 

c 

Form  L9-32m-8,'57(.C8680s4)444 


000135540    3 


wusjc 

LlMARf 

ML 
60 
S96m 


-. 


